ntf 



LEISURE HOUR SERIES 



PLAY-DAY POEMS 



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The Man with the Bro- 
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JS'ovel. 
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The Wooing O't. 

Which Shall It Be? 

Ralph Wilton's Weird. 

Her Deares.t F.oe. 

Heritage o: 
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The Villa 
Rhine. 2v 

Black For. 
Stories. 

The Little 

Joseph in : 

Edelweiss. 

German Ta 

On the Hei 

The Convic 

LORLEY ANl 

Aloys. 

Poet and IM 

Landolin. 
BJORNSO 

The Fishei 
BUTT, B. M. 

Miss Molly. 

Eugenie. 

CADELL, Mrs 
Ida Craven. 

CALVERLEY, C. S. 

Fly-Leaves. A volume 
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Joseph Noirel's Re- 
venge. 
Count Kostia. 
Prosper. 

CORKRAN, ALICE. 
Bessie Lang. 

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Fleurange. 

DROZ, GUSTAVE. 

Babolain. 
Around a Spring. 



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Wyncote. 
FREYTAG, G. 

Ingo. 

Ingraban. 
GIFT, THEO. 

Pretty Miss Bellew. 

Maid ELLrcE. 
GOETHE, J. W. Von 

Elective Affinities. 
GRIFFITHS, Arthur ROBERTS, Misgf 

1_ 

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Play-Day Poems. 
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Hermann Agha. 
PARR, LOUISA. 

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My Little Lady. 

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LEISURE HOUR S E R IE S.—No. 97 



PLAY-DAY POEMS 



COLLECTED AND EDITED 



BY 



ROSSITER JOHNSON 

r 

Nay, of all the heart-springs none are purer 

Than the springs of the fountains of mirth. 
He that sounds them has pierced the heart's hollows, 

The places where tears chose to sleep ; 
For the foam-flakes that dance in life's shallows 

Are wrung from life's deep. 

— Elegy on A rtemus Ward, in London Spectator. 





NEW YORK 
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY 

1878 






jt 



Copyright 
By HENRY HOLT & Co. ; 

1878. 



PREFACE. 

It is now twenty-two years since James Parton pub- 
lished his "Humorous Poetry of the English Language, 
from Chaucer to Saxe." In that time, I believe, no exclu- 
sively humorous collection of verse has appeared ; j r et not 
only has a new school of wits arisen in our day, but the 
later productions of some of the brightest represented in 
Mr. Parton's volume — notably Holmes, Lowell, and Saxe — 
have far outshone their earlier ones. In the same year that 
that book was issued, Mr. Butler made his great hit with 
"Nothing to Wear," but it was not till fourteen years later 
that Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee" and John Hay's au- 
dacious ballads almost made their reputations in a day. Of 
the humorists who came into notice during the civil war, 
some, like Halpine, unfortunately wrote only for the events 
and interests of the time, while others, like Newell and 
Arnold, have gained a more permanent place in our litera- 
ture. In England, Gilbert, author of the "Bab Ballads," 
Calverley, who has elevated parody to a fine art, and Dob- 
son, whose satire is as delicate as his verse is graceful, have 
all appeared within half a dozen years. 

The design of this volume is not so comprehensive as that 
of Mr. Parton's. It does not profess to give even a speci- 
men of every British or American poet whose verses have 
enjoyed a reputation for wit. The primary object has been 
to gather from the sources above indicated, and from fugi- 
tive publications, as many pieces of this character as can be 
put into a convenient volume. In doing this, I have striven 
to be guided by what I consider the first great principle of 



iv PREFAi 

the editorial art — to take a good thing wherever you can 
get it, find the second, which is like unto it, to reject a poor 
thing wherever it comes from. But it would have been un- 
natural to make any compilation of humorous poetry with- 
out adding largely from those poems which long since be- 
came classic, and which no lapse of time can rob of their 
merriment. I trust the collection will be found sumciently 
varied to present something for every taste, from the fine 
character-study in "A Virtuoso" to the louder humor of 
the " Lost Heir." And yet there is no species of composi- 
tion on whose merits any agreement is so uncertain. The 
editor of Punch might be supposed to know what is funny ; 
but the editor of Punch rejected " The Yarn of the Nancy 
Bell," now the most popular of the " Bab Ballads." " John 
Gilpin " had been published three years before it excited a 
smile. Locker's " Nice Correspondent " went begging among 
the English periodicals ; and if I had the author's permission 
T could name another poem in this collection which was re- 
jected by every one of our American magazines, but on be- 
ing published was immediately copied into nearly or quite 
every journal in the country. 

Several poems which would properly have found a place 
here have been omitted because they are already included 
in " Single Famous Poems," by the same editor, published 
last year, or in " Vers de Societe," a previous volume of the 
Leisure Hour Series. 

Both Editor and Publishers acknowledge with thanks 
their indebtedness to the American authors here repre- 
sented, and to their publishers, for permission to use selec- 
tions from copyrighted works. 

The reader who desires to extend his acquaintance with 
any of the writers selected from, will find the necessary 
bibliographical information in the Index of Authors, at the 
close of the book. 

R. J. 

New York, May 20 ; 1878. 



CONTENTS. 







page. 


^Estivation, 


Oliver Wendell Holmes 


. 192 


Amateur Orlando, The 


George T. Lanigan 


115 


Amateur Spelling-Match, 






The 


Earl Marble 


239 


American Traveler, The 


Robert H. Newell 


. 226 


Babette's Love, . 


William S. Gilbert 


208 


Bachelor's Dream, The . 


Thomas Hood 


. 267 


Bald-Headed Tyrant, The Mary E. Vandyne 


16 


Ballad .... 


Charles S. Calverley . 


. 157 


Ballad of Bedlam, A . 


Anonymous 


204 


Barney Buntline, . 


William Pitt, R.N . 


. 180 


Beauty, The 


Michael O Connor . 


252 


Belle, of the Ball, The . 


Winthrop M. Praed . 


. 37 


Birth of Saint Patrick, 






The . . 


Samuel Lover 


. 121 


Black Job, A 


Thomas Hood 


72 


Blind Men and the Ele- 






phant, The 


John Goq\frey Saxe 


. 160 


Bumboat Woman's Story, 






The 


William S. Gilbert 


54 


Chinese Story, A 


Christopher Pearse Cranch. 


89 


Chiquita, 


Bret Harte 


167 


Cock and the Bull, The . 


Charles S. Calverley . 


, 66 


Comic Miseries, 


John Godfrey Saxe 


1 


Contentment, . 


Oliver Wendell Holmes 


. 122 


Country Courtship, A 


Francis O Connor . 


231 



CONTENTS. 



Country Sleighing, 



. Edmund Clarence Stedman 41 



Cruise of the Flora, The George Arnold 



Crystal Palace, The 

Dirge, A 
Dobbs his Ferry 
Drury's Dirge, 

Editor's Wooing, The 
Elegy on a Mad Dog, 
Elegy on Mrs. Blaize, 
Evening, 

Fair Millinger, The 
Faithless Nelly G-ray, 
Faithless Sally Brown, . 
Fanny, To 
Folly of Brown, The 

Garden Idyl, A . 
Gentle Pieman, The 

Heathen Chinee, The 
Height of the Ridiculous, 



. William M. Thackeray 

William A. Croffut 
. William Allen Butler 
Horace Smith 

. Robert H Newell 
Oliver Goldsmith . 

. Oliver Goldsmith 
Oliver Wendell Holmes 

. Fred. W. Loring 

Thomas Hood 
. Thomas Hood 

William D. O Connor 
. William S. Gilbert 

Austin Dobson 
. William S. Gilbert 

. Bret Harte 



The 
Her Letter, 

Irishman, The 

John Gilpin, The His- 
tory of 
Jonathan to John, 

K. K. — Can't Calculate, 



Oliver Wendell Holmes 
. Bret Harte 

William Maginn 



. William Cowper 
James Russell LoweU 

Frances M. Whitcher 
Lady Ndirne . 



Laird o' Cockpen, The . 
Lawyer's Invocation to 

Spring, A . . . H. P. H. Brownell 
Lay of the Lover's Friend, 

The . . . William E. Aytoun 



144 

124 

189 
218 
149 

196 
154 
156 
198 

132 

213 

211 

255 

94 

4 
244 

104 



. 250 
58 

. 106 

26 

. 151 

60 

. 197 

270 



CONTENTS. 


vii 


Leedle Yawcob Strauss, 


Charles Follen Adams 


. 17 


Little Billee, 


William M. Thackeray . 


133 


Little Breeches, 


John Hay . 


. 230 


Lost Heir, The 


Thomas Hood . 


19 


Lovers, and a Reflection, 


Charles S. Calverley . 


. 152 


Love's Moods and Tenses, 


Anonymous 


205 


March to Moscow, The . 


Robert Southey . 


. 30 


Meeting of the Alumni of 






Harvard College, 


Oliver Wendell Holmes 


47 


Merry Ballad of Three 






Sophomores and a 






Toll- Woman, A 


Henry A. Beers . 


. 44 


Midges, 


Robert Bulvjer Lytton 


96 


Misadventures at Mar- 






gate, 


Richard Harris Bar ham 


. 22 


Motherhood, 


Charles S. Calverley . 


14 


Mourner a la Mode, The 


John Godfrey Saxe 


. 99 


Mr. Molony's Account of 






the Ball, 


William M. Thackeray . 


70 


Musical Frogs, The 


John Stuart Blackie . 


. 52 


Mystery of Gtlgal, The 


John Hay 


79 


Nantucket Skipper, The 


James T. Fields . 


. 88 


Needy Knife-G-rinder, The George Canning 


141 


Nice Correspondent, A . 


Frederick Locker 


. 248 


Ninety-Nine in the Shade, Rossiier Johnson 


193 


Nocturnal Sketch, A 


Thomas Hood . 


. 148 


Nose, The . 


Anonymous 


83 


Ode for a Social Meeting 


Oliver Wendell Holmes 


. 195 


Old Village Choir, The 


Benjamin F Taylor 


51 


One-Hoss Shay, The 


Oliver Wendell Holmes 


. 100 


Oubit, The . 


Charles Kingsley 


298 


Owd Pinder, 


Edwin Waugh . 


. 187 


Paddy Blake's Echo, . 


Samuel Lover 


207 



viii CONTENTS. 




Perils of Invisibility, The William S. Gilbert 


. 164 


Phrenology, 


William S. Gilbert 


180 


Pilgrims and the Peas, The John Wolcot 


. 81 


Plain Language from 






Truthful James, . 


Bret Harte 


104 


Pretty School-Ma'am, 






To a . 


, Marc E. Cook . 


. 201 


Pugilist to his Sweet- 






heart, The 


Anonymous . 


203 


Puzzled Census-Taker, A John Godfrey Saxe 


. 119 


Rhyme of the Rail, 


John Godrey Saxe . 


138 


Rhyme of the Rain, A 


Rossiter Johnson 


. 62 


Rich Young Lady, To a 


Michael O Connor . 


204 


Rory O'More, . 


, Samuel Lover 


. 241 


Sailor's Apology for 






Bow-Legs, A . 


Thomas Hood 


177 


Sally Simpkins's Lament, 


Thomas Hood 


. 119 


School and Schoolfellows, Winthrop M. Praed 


35 


Schoolmaster Abroad, The Charles S. Calverley . 


. 199 


Society upon the Stan- 






islow, The 


Bret Harte 


158 


Sorrows of Werther, 


William M. Thackeray 


. GO 


Spring 


Thomas Hood . 


83 


Spring .... 


, James Russell Lowell . 


. 85 


Stage-Driver's Story, 


Bret Harte 


161 


Stethoscope Song, The 


Oliver Wendell Holmes 


. 169 


Supper Superstition, The 


Thomas Hood 


129 


Tam O'Shanter 


Robert Burns 


. 8 


Threnody, A . 


George T. Lanigan 


191 


Toothache, To the . 


Robert Burns 


. 176 


Topside G-alah, 


Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 147 


Treadmill Song, The 


Oliver Wendell Holmes 


. 183 


Unhappy Lot of Mr. 






Knott, The . 


James Russell Lowell 


272 



CONTENTS. 
University of G-ottingen, 



The . 


George Canning 


. 43 


Virtuoso, A . 


Austin Dobson 


185 


What Mr. Robinson 
Thinks, 


, James Russell Lowell . 


. 142 


When Moonlike ore the 
Hazure Seas, 


William M. Thackeray . 


229 


Widow Machree, 


, Samuel Lover 


. 237 


Will, The . 


John Donne . 


216 


Woman of Three Cows, 
The . 


, James Clarence Mangan 


. 91 


Yarn of the Nancy Bell, 
The 


William S. Gilbert 


135 


Ye Lay of ye Wood- 
peckore, . 


, Henry A. Beers 


. 172 


Youth and Art, . 


Robert Browning 


242 


Zero in the Sun, 


, Rossiter Johnson 


. 194 


Index of First Lines, 





299 


Index of Authors, 




. 303 



PLAY-DAY POEMS. 



My dear young friend, whose shining wit 

Sets all the room a-blaze, 
Don't think yourself a happy dog, 

• For all your merry ways ; 
But learn to wear a sober phiz, 

Be stupid, if you can, 
It 's such a very serious thing 

To be a funny man ! 

You 're at an evening party, with 

A group of pleasant folks, 
You venture quietly to crack 

The least of little jokes ; 
A lady does n't catch the point, 

And begs you to explain — 
Alas for one that drops a jest 

And takes it up again ! 

You 're talking deep philosophy 
With very special force, 



PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

To edify a clergyman 

With suitable discourse, — 
You think you 've got him — when he calls 

A friend across the way, 
And begs you '11 say that funny thing 

You said the other day. 

You drop a pretty jeu-de-mot 

Into a neighbor's ears, 
Who likes to give you credit for 

The clever thing he hears, 
And so he hawks your jest about. 

The old authentic one, 
Just breaking off the point of it, 

And leaving out the pun. 

By sudden change in politics, 

Or sadder change in Polly, 
You lose your love, or loaves, and fall 

A prey to melancholy, 
While everybody marvels why 

Your mirth is under ban, — 
They think your very grief " a joke," 

You 're such a funny man. 

You follow up a stylish card 

That bids you come and dine, 
And bring along your freshest wit 

(To pay for musty wine) ; 
You 're looking very dismal, when 

My lady bounces in, 
And wonders what you 're thinking of, 

And why you don't begin. 

You 're telling to a knot of friends 
A fancy-tale of woes 



THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS. 

That cloud your matrimonial sky 

And banish all repose. 
A solemn lady overhears 

The story of your strife, 
And tells the town the pleasant news : 

You quarrel with your wife. 

My dear young friend, whose shining wit 

Sets all the room a-blaze, 
Don't think yourself a happy dog, 

For all your merry ways; 
But learn to wear a sober phiz, 

Be stupid, if you can, 
It 's such a very serious thing 

To be a funny man. 

John Godfrey Saxe. 

Cfje Stetfltt of tt)e mibtculous. 

I wrote some lines once on a time 

In wondrous merry mood, 
And thought, as usual, men would say 

They were exceeding good. 

They were so queer, so very queer, 

I laughed as I would die ; 
Albeit, in a general way, 

A sober man am I. 

I called my servant, and he came ; 

How kind it was of him, 
To mind a slender man like me, 

He of the mighty limb ! 

" These to the printer," I exclaimed, 
And, in my humorous way, 



PL A T-DA Y P OEMS. 

I added (as a trifling jest), 
" There '11 be the devil to pay." 

He took the paper, and I watched, 

And saw him peep within ; 
At the first line he read, his face 

Was all upon a grin. 

He read the next, the grin grew broad, 

And shot from ear to ear ; 
He read the third, a chuckling noise 

I now began to hear. 

The fourth, he broke into a roar ; 

The fifth, his waistband split ; 
The sixth, he burst five buttons off, 

And tumbled in a fit. 

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, 

I watched that wretched man, 
And since, I never dare to write 

As funny as I can. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



a <£artjen Jftgl. 



A POET. 



The Lady. 



Sir Poet, ere you crossed the lawn 

(If it was wrong to watch you, pardon), 
Behind this weeping birch withdrawn, 

I watched you saunter round the garden. 
I saw you bend beside the phlox, 

Pluck, as you passed, a sprig of myrtle, 
Review my well ranged hollyhocks, 

Smile at the fountain's slender spurtle ; 



A GARDEN IB YL. 

You paused beneath the cherry-tree, 

Where my marauder thrush was singing, 
Peered at the bee-hives curiously, 

And narrowly escaped a stinging ; 
And then — you see I watched — you passed 

Down the espalier walk that reaches 
Out to the western wall, and last 

Dropped on the seat before the peaches. 

What was your thought ? You waited long. 

Sublime or graceful, — grave, — satiric ? 
A Morris Greek-and-Grothic song ? 

A tender Tennysonian lyric? 
Tell me. That garden-seat shall be, 

So long as speech renown disperses, 
Illustrious as the spot where he — 

The gifted Blank — composed his verses. 

The Poet. 

Madam, — whose uncensorious eye 

Grows gracious over certain pages, 
Wherein the Jester's maxims lie, 

It may be, thicker than the Sage's — 
I hear but to obey, and could 

Mere wish of mine the pleasure do you, 
Some verse as whimsical as Hood, 

As gay as Praed, should answer to you. 

But, though the common voice proclaims 

Our only serious vocation 
Confined to giving nothing names, 

And dreams a " local habitation; " 
Believe me, there are tuneless days, 

When neither marble, brass, nor vellum, 
Would profit much by any lays 

That haunt the poet's cerebellum. 



PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

More empty things, I fear, than rhymes, 

More idle things than songs, absorb it ; 
The " finely-frenzied " eye, at times, 

Reposes mildly in its orbit ; 
And, painful truth, at times, to him, 

Whose jog-trot thought is nowise restive, 
" A primrose by a river's brim " 

Is absolutely unsuggestive. 

The fickle Muse !. As ladies will, 

She sometimes wearies of her wooer ; 
A goddess, yet a woman still, 

She flies the more that we pursue her. 
In short, with worst as well as best, 

Five months in six your hapless poet 
Is just as prosy as the rest, 

But cannot comfortably show it. 

You thought, no doubt, — The garden-scent 

Brings back some brief-winged bright sensation 
Of love that came and love that went, — 

Some fragrance of a lost flirtation, 
Born when the cuckoo changes song, 

Dead ere the apple's red is on it, 
That should have been an epic long, 

Yet scarcely served to fill a sonnet. 

Or else you thought. — The murmuring noon, 

He turns it to a lyric sweeter, 
With birds that gossip in the tune, 

And windy bough-swing in the metre ; 
Or else the zig-zag fruit-tree arms 

Recall some dream of harp-pressed bosoms, 
Round singing mouths, and chanted charms, 

And mediaeval orchard-blossoms, — 

Quite a la mode. Alas for prose, — 
My vagrant fancies only rambled 



A GARDEN IDYL. 

Back to the red-walled Rectory close, 

Where first my graceless boyhood gamboled, 

Climbed on the dial, teased the fish, 

And chased the kitten round the beeches, 

Till widening instincts made me wish 
For certain slowly-ripening peaches. 

Three peaches. Not the Graces three 

Had more equality of beauty : 
I would not look, yet went to see ; 

I wrestled with Desire and Duty ; 
I felt the pangs of those who feel 

The Laws of Property beset them ; 
The conflict made my reason reel, 

And, half-abstractedly, I ate them ;- 

Or Two of them. Forthwith Despair — 

More keen that one of these was rotten — 
Moved me to seek some forest lair 

Where I might hide and dwell forgotten, 
Attired in skins, by berries stained, 

Absolved from brushes and ablution ; — 
But, ere my sylvan haunt was gained, 

Fate gave me up to execution. 

I saw it all but now. The grin 

That gnarled old G-ardener Sandy's features ; 
My father, scholar-like and thin, 

Unroused, the tenderest of creatures ; 
I saw — ah me — I saw again 

My dear and deprecating mother ; 
And then, remembering the cane, 

Regretted— that I 'd left the other. 

Austin Dobsox. 



PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Cam (©'Stmnter* 

When chapman billies leave the street, 
And drouthy neebors neebors meet, 
As market-days are wearing late, 
An' folk begin to tak the gate, 
While we sit bousing at the nappy, 
An' gettin f ou and unco happy, 
We think na on the lang Scots miles, 
The mosses, waters, slaps, and stiles, 
That lie between us and our hame, 
Whare sits our sulky, sullen dame, 
Gathering her brows like gathering storm, 
Nursing her wrath to keep it warm. 

This truth fand honest Tam O'Shanter, 
As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, 
(Auld Ayr, whom ne'er a town surpasses, 
For honest men and bonny lasses.) 

Tarn ! hadst thou but been sae wise, 
As ta'en thy ain wife Kate's advice ! 
She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum, 
A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum ; 
That frae November till October, 
Ae market-day thou was nae sober ; 
That ilka melder, wi' the miller, 
Thou sat as lang as thou had siller ; 
That every naig was ca'd a shoe on, 
The smith and thee gat roaring fou on ; 
That at the L — d's house, e'en on Sunday, 
Thou drank wi' Kirton Jean till Monday. 
She prophesied that, late or soon, 
Thou would be found deep drown'd in Doon, 
Or catch'd wi' warlocks in the mirk, 
By Alloway's auld haunted kirk. 



TAM O'SHANTER. 

Ah, gentle dames ! it gars me greet, 
To think how mony counsels sweet, 
How mony lengthen'd, sage advices, 
The husband frae the wife despises ! 

But to our tale : Ae market night, 
Tarn had got planted unco right ; 
Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely, 
Wi' reaming swats, that drank divinely ; 
And at his elbow souter Johnny, 
His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony ; 
Tarn lo'ed him like a vera brither; 
They had been fou for weeks thegither. 
The night drave on wi' sangs an' clatter ; 
And aye the ale was growing better ; 
The landlady and Tarn grew gracious, 
Wi' favors secret, sweet, and precious : 
The souter tauld his queerest stories ; 
The landlord's laugh was ready chorus : 
The storm without might rair and rustle, 
Tarn did na mind the storm a whistle. 

Care, mad to see a man sae happy, 
E'en drown'd himself amang the nappy ; 
As bees flee hame wi' lades o' treasure, 
The minutes wing'd their way wi' pleasure ; 
Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious, 
O'er a' the ills o' life victorious. 

But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow-falls in the river, 
A moment white — then melts forever; 
Or like the borealis race, 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
1* 



1 PLA YD AY P OEMS. 

Evanishing amid the storm. 

Nae man can tether time or tide ; 

The hour approaches Tarn maun ride ; 

That hour, o' night's black arch the key-stane, 

That dreary hour he mounts his beast in ; 

And sic a night he taks the road in, 

As ne'er poor sinner was abroad in. 

The wind blew as 't wad blawn its last ; 
The rattling showers rose on the blast ; 
The speedy gleams the darkness swallow' d ; 
Loud, deep, and lang the thunder bellow'd : 
That night, a child might understand, 
The deil had business on his hand. 

Weel mounted on his gray mare Meg, 
A better never lifted leg, 
Tarn skelpit on through dub and mire, 
Despising wind, and rain, and fire ; 
Whiles holding fast his guid blue bonnet ; 
Whiles crooning o'er some auld Scots sonnet ; 
Whiles glowering round wi' prudent cares, 
Lest bogles catch him unawares ; 
Kirk-AUoway was drawing nigh, 
Whare ghaists and howlets nightly cry. 

By this time he was cross the ford, 
Whare in the snaw the chapman smoor'd ; 
And past the birks an' meikle stane, 
Whare drunken Charlie brak 's neck bane ; 
And through the whins, and by the cairn, 
Whare hunters fand the murder' d bairn ; 
And near the thorn, aboon the well, 
Whare Mungo's mither hang'd hersel. 
Before him Doon pours all his floods ; 
The doubling storm roars through the woods ■ 



TAM O'SRANTER. \ \ 

The lightnings flash from pole to pole ; 
Near and more near the thunders roll ; 
When, glimmering through the groaning trees, 
Kirk- Alio way seem'd in a bleeze ; 
Through ilka bore the beams were glancing ; 
And loud resounded mirth and dancing. 

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn ! 
What dangers thou canst make us scorn ! 
Wi' tippenny we fear nae evil ; 
Wi' usquabae we '11 face the devil ! — 
The swats sae ream'd in Tammie's noddle, 
Fair play, he cared na deils a boddle. 
But Maggie stood right sair astonish' d, 
Till, by the heel and hand admonish'd, 
She ventured forward on the light ; 
And, vow ! Tam saw an unco sight ! 
Warlocks and witches in a dance ; 
Nae cotillon brent new frae France, 
But hornpipes, jigs, strathspeys, and reels, 
Put life and mettle in their heels. 
A winnock-bunker in the east, 
There sat auld Hick, in shape o' beast ; 
A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large, 
To gie them music was his charge : 
He screw' d the pipes, and gart them skirl, 
Till roof and rafters a' did dirl. 
Coffins stood round like open presses, 
That shaw'd the dead in their last dresses ; 
And by some devilish cantraip slight, 
Each in its cauld hand held a light, 
By which heroic Tam was able 
To note upon the haly table, 
A murderer's banes in gibbet aims ; 
Twa span lang, wee, unchristen'd bairns ; 
A thief new cutted frae a rape, 



1 2 PL A Y-BA T P OEMS. 

Wi' his last gasp his gab did gape ; 
Five tomahawks, wi' bluid red rusted ; 
Five cimiters, wi' murder crusted ; 
A garter, which a babe had strangled ; 
; A knife, a father's throat had mangled, 
Whom his ain son o' life bereft, 
The gray, hairs yet stack to the heft ; 
Wi' mair o' horrible and awfu', 
Which e'en to name wad be unlawfu'. 

As Tammie glowr'd, amazed and curious, 
The mirth and fun grew fast and furious : 
The piper loud and louder blew ; 
The dancers quick and quicker flew ; 
They reel'd, they set, they cross' d, they cleekit, 
Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, 
And coost her duddies to the wark, 
And linket at it in her sark ! 

Now Tarn, Tam ! had they been queans, 
A' plump and strapping, in their teens ; 
Their sarks, instead o' creeshie flannen, 
Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linen ! 
Thir breeks o' mine, my only pair, 
That ance were plush, o' guid blue hair, 
I wad hae gien them aff my hurdies 
For ae blink o' the bonnie burdies. 

But wither'd beldames, auld and droll, 
Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, 
Lowping an' flinging on a crummock, 
I wonder didna turn thy stomach. 

But Tam kenn'd what was Avhat fu' brawlie. 
There was ae winsome wench and walie, 
That night enlisted in the core, 



TAM O'SUANTER 13 

(Lang after kenn'd on Carrick shore ! 
For mony a beast to dead she shot, 
And perish'd mony a bonnie boat, 
And shook baith meikle corn and bear, 
And kept the country side in fear.) 
Her cutty-sark, o' Paisley harn, 
That while a lassie she had worn, 
In longitude though sorely scanty, 
It was her best, and she was vauntie. 
Ah ! little kenn'd thy reverend grannie, 
That sark she coft for her wee Nannie, 
Wi' twa pund Scots, ('t was a' her riches,) 
Wad ever graced a dance of witches ! 

But here my muse her wing maun cour ; 
Sic flights are far beyond her power; 
To sing how Nannie lap and flang, 
(A souple jade she was and Strang), 
And how Tarn stood like ane bewitch'd. 
And thought his very een enrich'd ; 
E'en Satan glowr'd, and fidged fu' fain, 
And hotch'd and blew wi' might and main : 
Till first ae caper, syne anither, 
Tarn tint his reason a' thegither, 
And roars out, " Well done, cutty-sark ! " 
And in an instant all was dark : 
And scarcely had he Maggie rallied, 
When out the hellish legion sallied. 

As bees bizz out wi' angry fyke, 
When plundering herds assail their byke ; 
As open pussie's mortal foes, 
When, pop ! she starts before their nose ) 
As eager runs the market-crowd, 
When " Catch the thief ! " resounds aloud ; 
So Maggie runs-, the witches follow, 
Wi' mony an eldritch skreech and hollow. 



1 4 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

Ah, Tani ! ah, Tarn ! thou '11 get thy f airin ! 
In hell they '11 roast thee like a herrin ! 
In vain thy Kate awaits thy com in ! 
Kate soon will be a wofu' woman ! 
Now do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
And win the key-stane of the brig ; 
There at them thou thy tail may toss, 
A running stream they dare na cross. 
But ere the key-stane she could make, 
The fient a tail she had to shake ! 
For Nannie, far before the rest, 
Hard upon noble Maggie prest, 
And flew at Tarn wi' furious ettle ; 
But little wist she Maggie's mettle — 
Ae spring brought off her master hale, 
But left behind her ain gray tail : 
The carlin claught her by the rump, 
And left poor Maggie scarce a stump. 

Now, wha this tale o' truth shall read, 
Ilk man and mother's son, tak heed : 
' Whene'er to drink you are inclined, 
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, 
Think, ye may buy the joys o'er dear,- 
Remember Tarn O'Shanter's mare. 

Robert Burns. 

She. laid it where the sunbeams fall 
Unscanned upon the broken wall. 
Without a tear, without a groan, 
She laid it near a mighty stone 
Which some rude swain had haply cast 
Thither in sport, long ages past, 
And Time with mosses had o'erlaid, 



MOTHERHOOD. 15 

And fenced with many a tall grass-blade, 
And all about bid roses bloom 
And violets shed their soft perfume. 
There, in its cool and quiet bed, 
She set her burden down and fled ; 
Nor flung, all eager to escape, 
One glance upon the perfect shape 
That lay, still warm and fresh and fair, 
But motionless and soundless there. 

No human eye had marked her pass 

Across the linden-shadowed grass 

Ere yet the minster clock chimed seven j 

Only the innocent birds of heaven — 

The magpie, and the rook whose nest 

Swings as the elm- tree waves its crest — 

And the lithe cricket, and the hoar 

And huge-limbed hound that guards the door, 

Looked on when, as a summer wind 

That, passing, leaves no trace behind, 

All unappareled, barefoot all, 

She ran to that old ruined wall, 

To leave upon the chill dank earth 

(For ah ! she never knew its worth), 

Mid hemlock rank, and fern, and ling, 

And dews of night, that precious thing ! 

And there it might have lain forlorn 
From morn till eve, from eve till morn, 
But that, by some wild impulse led, 
The mother, ere she turned and fled, 
One moment stood erect and high, 
Then poured into the silent sky 
A cry so jubilant, so strange, 
That Alice — as she strove to 'range 
Her rebel ringlets at her glass — 



16 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Sprang up and gazed across the grass ; 
Shook back those curls so fair to see, 
Clapped her soft hands so full of glee, 
And shrieked — her sweet face all aglow, 
Her very limbs with rapture shaking — 
" My hen has laid an egg, I know ; 
And only hear the noise she 's making ! 

Charles S. Calverley. 

O the quietest home on earth had I, 
No thought of trouble, no hint of care ; 

Like a dream of pleasure the days fled by, 
And Peace had folded her pinions there. 

But one day there joined in our household band 

A bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land. 

Oh, the despot came in the dead of night, 
And no one ventured to ask him why ; 

Like slaves we trembled before his might, 

Our hearts stood still when we heard him cry ; 

For never a soul could his power withstand, 

That bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land. 

He ordered us here, and he sent us there — 

Though never a word could his small lips speak — 

With his toothless gums and his vacant stare, 
And his helpless limbs so frail and weak, 

Till I cried, in a voice of stern command, 
" G-o up, thou bald-head from No-man's-land ! " 

But his abject slaves they turned on me ; 

Like the bears in Scripture, they 'd rend me there, 
The while they worshiped with bended knee 

This ruthless wretch with the missing hair ; 



LEEDLE YAWCOB STRAUSS. I) 

For he rules them all with relentless hand, 
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land. 

Then I searched for help in every clime, 
For peace had fled from my dwelling now, 

Till I finally thought of old Father, Time, 
And low before him I made my bow. 
" Wilt thou deliver me out of his hand, 

This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land ? " 

Old Time he looked with a puzzled stare, 
And a smile came over his features grim. 
"I '11 take the tyrant under my care : 

Watch what my hour-glass does to him. 
The veriest humbug that ever was planned 
Is this same bald-head from No-man's-land." 

Old Time is doing his work full well — 
Much less of might does the tyrant wield ; 

But, ah ! with sorrow my heart will swell, 
And sad tears fall as I see him yield. 

Could I stay the touch of that shriveled hand, 

I would keep the bald-head from No-man's-land. 

For the loss of peace I have ceased to care ; 

Like other vassals, I 've learned, forsooth, 
To love the wretch who forgot his hair 

And hurried along without a tooth, 
And he rules me too with his tiny hand, 
This bald-headed tyrant from No-man's-land. 

Mary E. Vandyne. 

ILertiU gatocob Stcausg. 

T haf von funny leedle poy 

Vot gomes schust to my knee,- 



1 8 PL A T-BA Y P OEMS. 

Der queerest schap, der Greatest rogue 

As efer you dit see. 
He runs, und schumps, und schmashes dings 

In all barts off der house. 
But vot off dot ? He vas mine son, 

Mine leedle Yawcob Strauss. 

He get der measels und der mumbs, 

Und eferyding dot 's oudt ; 
He sbills mine glass off lager bier, 

Poots schnuff indo mine kraut ; 
He fills mine pipe mit Limburg cheese — 

Dot vas der roughest chouse ; 
I 'd dake dot vrom no oder poy 

But leedle Yawcob Strauss. 

He dakes der milk-ban for a dhrum, 

Und cuts mine cane in dwo 
To make der schticks to beat it mit — 

Mine cracious, dot vas drue ! 
I dinks mine hed vas schplit abart, 

He kicks oup sooch a touse ; 
But nefer mind, der poys vas few 

Like dot young Yawcob Strauss. 

He asks me questions sooch as dese : 

Who baints mine nose so red ? 
Who vos it cuts dot schmoodth blace oudt 

Vrom der hair ubon mine hed ? 
Und vhere der plaze goes vrom der lamp 

Vene'er der glim I douse ? 
How gan I all dese dings eggsblain 

To dot schmall Yawcob Strauss. 

I somedimes dink I schall go vild 
Mit sooch a grazv poy 



THE LOST HEIR. 19 

Und vish vonce more I gould haf rest 

TJnd beaceful dimes enshoy. 
But ven he vas ashleep in ped 

So quiet as a mouse, 
I brays der Lord, " Dake anydings, 

But leaf dot Yawcob Strauss." 

Charles Follen Adams. 

Ci)e Ho$t ffietr. 

One day, as I was going by 

That part of Holborn christened High 

I heard a loud and sudden cry 

That chilled my very blood ; 
And lo ! from out a dirty alley, 
Where pigs and Irish wont to rally, 
I saw a crazy woman sally, 

Bedaubed with grease and mud. 
She turned her East, she turned her West, 
Staring like Pythoness possest, 
With streaming hair and heaving breast, 

As one stark mad with grief. 
This way and that she wildly ran, 
Jostling with woman and with man — 
Her right hand held a frying.-pan, 

The left a lump of beef. 
At last her frenzy seemed to reach 
A point just capable of speech, 
And with a tone almost a screech, 

As wild as ocean birds, 
Or female ranter moved to preach, 

She gave her sorrow words : 

11 Lord ! dear, my heart will break, I shall go stick 

stark staring wild ! 
Has ever a one seen anything about the streets like a crying 

lost-looking child ! 



20 PL A YD AY P OEMS. 

Lawk help me, I don't know where to look, or to run, if I 

only knew which way — 
A Child as is lost about London streets, and especially Seven 

Dials, is a needle in a bottle of hay. 
I am all in a quiver — get out of my sight, do, you wretch, 

you little Kitty M'Nab ! 
You promised to have half an eye to him, you know you 

did, you dirty deceitful young drab. 
The last time as ever I see him, poor thing, was with my 

own blessed Motherly eyes, 
Sitting as good as gold in the gutter, a playing at making 

little dirt pies. 
I wonder he left the court, where he was better off than all 

the other young boys, 
With two bricks, an old shoe, nine oyster-shells, and a dead 

kitten by way of toys. 
When his Father comes home, and he always comes home 

as sure as ever the clock strikes one, 
He '11 be rampant, he will, at his child being lost ; and the 

beef and the inguns not done ! 
La bless you, good folks, mind your OAvn concarns, and don't 

be making a mob in the street; 
Sergeant M'Farlane ! you have not come across my poor 

little boy, have you, in your beat ? 
Do, good people^ move on ! don't stand staring at me like a 

parcel of stupid stuck pigs ; 
Saints forbid ! but he 's p'r'aps been inviggled away up a 

court for the sake of his clothes by the prigs ; 
He 'd a very good jacket, for certain, for I bought it myself 

for a shilling one day in Rag Fair ; 
And his trousers considering not very much patched, and 

red plush, they was once his Father's best pair. 
His shirt, it 's very lucky I 'd got washing in the tub, or that 

might have gone with the rest ; 
But he 'd got on a very good pinafore with only two slits 

and a burn on the breast. 



THE LOST HEIR. 21 

He 'd a goodish sort of hat, if the crown was sewed in, and 

not quite so much jagged at the brim. 
With one shoe on, and the other shoe is a boot, and not a 

fit, and you ! 11 know by that if it 's him. 
And then he has got such dear winning ways — but 0, I 

never, never shall see him no more ! 

dear ! to think of losing him just after missing him back 

from death's door ! 
Only the very last month when the windfalls, hang 'em, 

was at twenty a penny ! 
And the threepence he 'd got by grottoing was spent in 

plums, and sixty for a child is too many. 
And the Cholera man came and whitewashed us all, and, 

drat him ! made a seize of our hog. 
It 's no use to send the Crier to cry him about, he 's such a 

blunderin' drunken old dog ; 
The last time he was fetched to find a lost child, he was 

guzzling with his bell at the Crown, 
And went and cried a boy instead of a girl, for a distracted 

Mother and Father about Town. 
Billy — where are you, Billy, I say ? come, Billy, come home 

to your best of Mothers ! ^ 

1 'm scared when I think of them Cabroleys, they drive so, 

they 'd run over their own Sisters and Brothers. 
Or may be he 's stole by some chimbly-sweeping wretch, to 

stick fast in narrow flues and what not, 
And be poked up behind with a picked pointed pole, when 

the soot has ketched and the chimbly 's red hot. 
0, I 'd give the whole wide world, if the world was mine, 

to clap my two longin' eyes on his face : 
For he 's my darlin' of darlin's, and if he don't soon coma 

back, you '11 see me drop stone dead on the place. 
I only wish I 'd got him safe in these two Motherly arms, 

and would n't I hug him and kiss him ! 
Lawk! I never knew what a precious he was— but a child 

don't not feel like a child till you miss him. 



2 2 PL A Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

Why there he is! Punch and Judy hunting, the young 
wretch, it 's that Billy as ^artain as sin ! 

But let me get him home, with a good grip of his hair, and 
I 'm blest if he shall have a whole bone in his skin ! 

Thomas Hood. 

J^teafcbentutes at JKargate. 

I was in Margate last July, I walked upon the pier, 

I saw a little vulgar Boy — I said, " What make you here ? 

The gloom upon your youthful cheek speaks anything but 

joy;" 

Again I said, " What make you here, you little vulgar Boy ? " 

He frowned, that little vulgar Boy, he deemed I meant to 
And when the little heart is big, a little " sets it off." [scoff, . 
He put his finger in his mouth, his little bosom rose — 
He had no little handkerchief to wipe his little nose ! 

" Hark ! don't you hear, my little man ? — it 's striking Nine," 
I said, [bed. 

" An hour when all good little boys and girls should be in 

Run home and get your supper, else your Ma will scold — O 
fie! 

It 's very wrong indeed for little boys to stand and cry ! " 

The tear-drop in his little eye again began to spring, 

His bosom throbbed with agony — he cried like anything ! 

I stooped, and thus amidst his sobs I heard him murmur — 

"Ah! 
I have n't got no supper! and I have n't got no Ma ! 

" My father, he is on the seas — my mother 's dead and gone ! 
And I am here, on this here pier, to roam the world alone ; 
I have not had, this livelong day, one drop to cheer my 

heart, 
Nor ' brown ' to buy a bit of bread with — let alone a tart ! 



MIS AD VENTURES A T MARGA TE. 2 3 

" If there 's a soul will give me food, or find me in employ, 

By day or night, then blow me tight!" (he was a vulgar 
Boy); 

" And now I 'm here, from this here pier it is my fixed in- 
tent 

To jump as Mister Levi did from off the Monument ! " 

" Cheer up ! cheer up ! my little man — cheer up ! " I kindly 

said, 
" You are a naughty boy to take such things into your head ; 
If you should jump from off the pier, you 'd surely break 

your legs, 
Perhaps your neck — then Bogey 'd have you, sure as eggs 

are eggs ! 

" Come home with me, my little man, come home with me 

and sup j 
My landlady is Mrs. Jones — we must not keep her up — 
There 's roast potatoes at the fire — enough for me and you — 
Come home, you little vulgar Boy — I lodge at Number 2." 

I took him home to Number 2, the house beside " The Foy," 
I bade him wipe his dirty shoes — that little vulgar Boy — 
And then I said to Mistress Jones, the kindest of her sex, 
u Pray be so good as go and fetch a pint of double X ! " 

But Mrs. Jones was rather cross, she made a little noise, 
She said she " did not like to wait on little vulgar Boys." 
She with her apron wiped the plates, and, as she rubbed the 

delf, 
Said I might "go to Jericho, and fetch my beer myself! " 

I did not go to Jericho — I went to Mr. Cobb— 
I changed a shilling (which in town the people call a Bob) — 
It was not so much for myself as for that vulgar child — 
And I said, " A pint of double X, and please to draw it 
mild!" 



24 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

When I came back I gazed about — I gazed on stool and 

chair — 
I could not see my little friend, because he was not there ! 
I peeped beneath the table-cloth, beneath the sofa too — 
I said, " You little vulgar Boy ! why, what 's become of 

you?" 

I could not see my table-spoons — I looked, but could not see 
The little fiddle-patterned ones I use when I 'm at tea ; 
I could not see my sugar-tongs, my silver watch — dear ! 
I know 't was on the mantel-piece when I went out for beer. 

I could not see my Macintosh — it was not to be seen ! 
Nor yet my best white beaver hat, broad-brimmed and lined 

with green ; [soy — 

My carpet-bag — my cruet-stand, that holds my sauce and 
My roast potatoes ! — all are gone ! — and so 's that vulgar 

Boy! 

I rang the bell for Mrs. Jones, for she was down below, 
" Mrs. Jones, what do you think? — ain't this a pretty go ? 
That horrid little vulgar Boy whom I brought here to-night, 
He 's stolen jny things and run away ! " Says she, " And 
sarve you right ! " 

Next morning I was up betimes — I sent the Crier round, 
All with his bell and gold-laced hat, to say, I 'd give a pound 
To find that little vulgar Boy, who 'd gone and used me so ; 
But when the Crier cried, " Yes ! " the people cried, " 

No!" 

I went to " Jarvis' Landing-place," the glory of the town, 
There was a common sailor man a walking up and down. 
I told my tale — he seemed to think I *d not been treated 
well, [cannot tell. 

And called me "Poor old Buffer!" — what that means, I 



MI SAD VENTURES AT MARGATE. 25 

That sailor-man, he said he 'd seen that morning on the shore, 

A son of — something — 't was a name I 'd never heard be- 
fore — 

A little " gallows-looking chap " — dear me, what could he 
mean ? — 

With a "carpet-swab" and "mucking- togs," and a hat 
turned up with green. 

He spoke about his " precious eyes," and said he 'd seen him 

" sheer "— 
It 's very odd that sailor-men should talk so very queer : 
And then he hitched his trousers up, as is, I 'm told, their 

use — 
It 's very odd that sailor-men should wear those things so 

loose. 

I did not understand him well, but think he meant to say 
He 'd seen that little vulgar Boy, that morning, swim away 
In Captain Large's Royal George, about an hour before, 
And they were now, as he supposed, " somewheres " about 
the Nore. 

A landsman said, " I twig the chap — he 's been upon the 

Mill— 
And 'cause he gammons so the flats, ve calls him Veeping 

Bill!" 
He said "he 'd done me werry brown," and nicely " stowed 

the swag " — 
That 's French, I fancy, for a hat, or else a carpet-bag. 

I went and told the constable my property to track ; 
He asked me if "I did not wish that I might get it back." 
I answered, " To be sure I do ! — it 's what I 'm come about." 
He smiled and said, " Sir, does your mother know that you 
are out ? " 

Not knowing what to do, I thought I 'd hasten back to 
town, 
3 



26 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

And beg our own Lord Mayor to catch the boy who 'd 

" done me brown." 
His Lordship very kindly said he 'd try and find him out, 
But he " rather thought that there were several vulgar boys 

about." 

He sent for Mr. Whithair then, and I described " the swag," 
My Macintosh, my sugar-tongs, my spoons and carpet-bag ; 
He promised that the New Police should all their powers 

employ, 
But never to this hour have I beheld that vulgar Boy ! 

MORAL. 

Remember, then, what when a boy I 've heard my Grandma 

tell, 
" Be warned in time by others' harm, and you shall do 

full well ! " 
Don't link yourself with vulgar folks, who 've got no fixed 

abode, 
Tell lies, use naughty words, and say they " wish they may 

be blowed! " 

Don't take too much of double X! — and don't at night go 

out 
To fetch your beer yourself, but make the pot-boy bring 

your stout ! 
And when you go to Margate next, just stop, and ring the 

bell, 
Give my respects to Mrs. Jones, and say I 'm pretty well ! 

Richard Harris Barham. 

gonatfjan to Stojm, 

1862. 

It don't seem hardly right, John, 
When both my hands was full, 



JONATHAN TO JOHN 27 

To stump me to a fight, John,— 
Your cousin, tu, John Bull ! 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 

We know it now," sez he, 
" The lion's paw is all the law, 

According to J. B., 

Thet 's fit for you an' me ! " 

You wonder why we 're hot, John ? 

Your mark wuz on the guns, 
The neutral guns, thet shot, John, 
Our brothers an' our sons : 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess 
There 's human blood," sez he, 
" By fits an' starts, in Yankee hearts, 
Though 't may surprise J. B. 
More 'n it would you an' me." 

Ef /turned mad dogs loose, John, 

On your front-parlor stairs, 
Would it jest meet your views, John, 
To wait an' sue their heirs ? 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, 
I o'ny guess," sez he, 
" Thet ef Yattel on his toes fell, 
'T would kind o' rile J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 

Who made the law thet hurts, John, 
Heads I win, — ditto tails ? 
" J. B." was on his shirts, John, 
Onless my memory fails. 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
(I 'm good at thet)," sez he, 
" Thet sauce for goose ain't jest the juice 
For ganders with J. B., 
No more than you or me ! " 



28 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

When your rights was our wrongs, John, 

You did n't stop for fuss, — 
Britanny's trident prongs, John, 
Was good 'nough law for us. 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
Though physic 's good," sez he, 
" It does n't foller that he can swaller 
Prescriptions signed ' J. B.J 
Put up by you an' me ! " 

We own the ocean tu, John : 

You mus' n' take it hard, 
Ef we can't think with you, John, 
It 's jest your own back-yard. 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess, 
Ef thet 's his claim," sez he, 
" The fencin'-stuff '11 cost enough 
To bust up friend J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me!" 

Why talk so dreffle big, John, 

Of honor when it meant 
You did n't care a fig, John, 
But jest for ten per cent? 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
He 's like the rest," sez he : 
" When all is done, it 's number one 
Thet 's nearest to J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 

We give the critters back, John, 

Cos Abram thought 't was right : 
It warn't your bullyin' clack, John, 
Provokin' us to fight. 

Ole Uncle S. sez he. L< I guess 
We 've a hard row,'' sez he, 



JONATHAN TO JOHN. 29 

" To hoe jest now ; but thet somehow, 
May happen to J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 

We ain't so weak an' poor, John, 

With twenty million people, 
An' close to every door, John, 
A school-house an' a steeple. 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess 
It is a fact," sez he, 
" The surest plan to make a Man 
Is, think him so, J. B., 
Ez much ez you or me ! " 

Our folks believe in Law, John ; 

An' it 's for her sake, now, 
They 've left the axe an' saw, John, 
The anvil an' the plough. 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, 
Ef 't warn't for law," sez he, 
" There 'd be one shindy from here to Indy ; 
An' thet don't suit J. B. 
(When 't ain't 'twixt you an' me!)" 

We know we 've got a cause, John, 

Thet 's honest, just, an' true: 
We thought 't would win applause, John, 
Ef nowheres else, from you. 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess 
His love of right," sez he, 
" Hangs by a rotten fibre o' cotton : 
There 's natur' in J. B. 
Ez wal ez you and me ! " 

The South says, "Poor folks down ! " John, 
An' "All men up I " say we, — 



3 PL A T-DA T P OEMS. 

White, yaller, black, an' brown, John: 
Now which is your idee ? 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, 

John preaches wal," sez he ; 
" But, sermon thru, an' come to du, 

Why, there 's the old J. B. 

A crowdin' you an' me ! " 

Shall it be love, or hate, John ? 

It 's you thet 's to decide ; 
Ain't your bonds held by Fate, John, 
Like all the world's beside ? 
Ole Uncle S. sez he, "I guess 
Wise men forgive," sez he, 
" But not forget ; an' some time yet 
Thet truth may strike J. B., 
Ez wal ez you an' me ! " 

God means to make this land, John, 

Clear thru, from sea to sea, 
Believe an' understand, John, 
The wuth o bein' free. 

Ole Uncle S. sez he, " I guess, 
God's price is high," sez he; 
" But nothin' else than wut He sells 
Wears long, an' thet J. B. 
May lam, like you an' me ! " 

James Russell Lowell. 

€f)e i&arcf) to iftoscoto. 

The Emperor Nap he would set off 
On a summer excursion to Moscow ; 
The fields were green, and the sky was blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! 



THE MARCH TO MOSCOW. 31 

Four hundred thousand men and more 
Must go with him to Moscow : 
There were Marshals by the dozen, 

And Dukes by the score : 
Princes a few, and Kings one or two ; 
While the fields are so green, and the sky so blue, 
Morbleu! Parbleu ! 
What a pleasant excursion to Moscow ! 

There was Junot and Augereau, 

Heigh-ho for Moscow ! 
Dombrowsky and Poniatowsky, 

Marshal Ney, lack-a-day ! 
General Rapp, and the Emperor Nap ; 
Nothing would do 
While the fields were so green, and the sky so blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
Nothing would do 
For the whole of this crew, 
But they must be marching to Moscow. 

The Emperor Nap he talk'd so big 
That he frightened Mr. Roscoe. 
John Bull, he cries, if you '11 be wise, 
Ask the Emperor Nap if he will please 
To grant you peace upon your knees, 
Because he is going to Moscow ! 
He '11 make all the Poles come out of their holes, 
And beat the Russians, and eat the Prussians ; 
For the fields are green, and the sky is blue, 

Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
And he '11 certainly march to Moscow 1 

And Counselor Brougham was all in a fume 
At the thought of the march to Moscow : 
The Russians, he said, they were undone, 



3 2 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

And the great Fee-Faw-Fum 
Would presently come, 
With a hop, step, and jump, unto London. 

For, as for his conquering Russia, 
However some persons might scoff it, 
Do it he could, and do it he would, 
And from doing it nothing would come but good. 
And nothing could call him off it. 
Mr. Jeffrey said so, who must certainly know. 

For he was the Edinburgh Prophet. 
They all of them knew Mr. Jeffrey's Review, 
Which with Holy Writ ought to be reckon' d : 
It was, through thick and thin, to its party true : 
Its back was buff, and its sides were blue, 
Morbleu! Parbleu! 
It serv'd them for Law and for Gospel too. 

But the Russians stoutly they turn'd to 

Upon the road to Moscow. 
Nap had to fight his way all through ; 
They could fight though they could not parlez-vous : 
But the fields were green, and the sky was blue, 
Morbleu! Parbleu! 
And so he got to Moscow. 

He found the place too warm for him, 

For they set fire to Moscow. 
To get there had cost him much ado, 
And then no better course he knew, 
While the fields were green, and the sky was blue. 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
But to march back again from Moscow. 

The Russians they stuck close to him 

All on the road from Moscow. 
There was Tormazow and Jemalow, 



THE MARCH TO MOSCOW. < 33 

And all the others that end in ow ; 
Milarodovitch and Jaladovitch, 
And Karatschkowitch, 
And all the others that end in itch ; 
Schamscheff, Souchosaneff, 
And Schepaleff, 
And all the others that end in eff ; 
Wasiltschikoff, Kostomaroff, 
And Tchoglokoff, 
And all the others that end in off; 
Rajeffsky, and Novereffsky, 
And Rieffsky, 
And all the others that end in effsky ; 

Oscharoffsky and Rostoffsky, 
And all the others that end in offsky ; 
And Platoff he play'd them off, 
And Shouvaloff he shovell'd them off, 
And Markoff he mark'd them off, 
And Krosnoff he cross' d them off, 
And Tuchkoff he touch'd them off, 
And Boroskoff he bor'd them off, 
And Kutousoff he cut them off, 
And Parenzoff he par'd them off, 
And Worronzoff he worri'd them off, 
And Doctoroff he doctor'd them off, 
And Rodionoff he flogg'd them off. 
And last of all, an Admiral came, 
A terrible man with a terrible name, 
A name which you all know by sight very well, 
But which no one can speak, and no one can spell. 
They stuck close to Nap with all their might, 
They were on the left and on the right, 
Behind and before, and by day and night ; 
He would rather panez-vous than fight ; 
But he look'd white and he look'd blue, 
3* 



34 % PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Morbleu! Parbleu! 
When parlez-vous no more would do, 
For they remembered Moscow. 

And then came on the frost and snow, 
All on the road from Moscow. 
The wind and the weather he found in that hour 
Cared nothing for him nor for all his power ; 
For him who, while Europe crouch'd under his rod, 
Put his trust in his fortune and not in his G-od, 
Worse and worse every day the elements grew, 
The fields were so white and the sky so blue, 
Sacrebleu ! Ventrebleu ! 

What a horrible journey from Moscow. 

What then thought the Emperor Nap 
Upon the road from Moscow ? 
Why, I ween he thought it small delight 
To fight all day and to freeze all night ; 
And he was besides in a very great fright, 
For a whole skin he liked to be in ; 
And so not knowing what else to do, 
When the fields were so white and the sky so blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu ! 
He stole away, — I tell you true, — 
Upon the road from Moscow. 
'T is myself, quoth he, I must mind most ; 
So the Devil may take the hindmost. 

Too cold upon the road was he ; 
Too hot had he been at Moscow ; 
But colder and hotter he may be, 
For the grave is colder than Moscovy ; 
And a place there is to be kept in view, 
Where the fire is red, and the brimstone blue, 
Morbleu ! Parbleu I 



SCHOOL AND SCHOOL-FELLO W& 35 

Which he must go to, 
If the Pope say true, 
If he does not in time look about him ; 
Where his namesake almost 
He may have for his Host ; 
He has reckon' d too long without him; 
If that Host get him in Purgatory, 
He won't leave him there alone with his glory, 
But there he must stay for a very long day, 
For from thence there is no stealing away, 
As there was on the road to Moscow. 

Robert Southey. 

jocijool an* Scf)ool^elloto0» 

Twelve years ago I made a mock 

Of filthy trades and traffics : 
I wondered what they meant by stock ; 

I wrote delightful sapphics : 
I knew the streets of Rome and Troy, 

I supped with fates and furies ; 
Twelve year-s ago I Was a boy, 

A happy boy at Drury's. 

Twelve years ago ! — how many a thought 

Of faded pains and pleasures 
Those whispered syllables have brought 

From memory's hoarded treasures ! 
The fields, the forms, the beasts, the books, 

The glories and disgraces, 
The voices of dear friends, the looks 

Of old familiar faces. 

Where are my friends ? — I am alone, 

No playmate shares my beaker — 
Some lie beneath the church-yard stone, 

And some before the Speaker ; 



3 6 PL A YDAY P OEMS. 

And some compose a tragedy, 
And some compose a rondo ; 

And some draw sword for liberty, 
And some draw pleas for John Doe. 

Tom Mill was used to blacken eyes, 

Without the fear of sessions ; 
Charles Medler loathed false quantities, 

As much as false professions ; 
Now Mill keeps order in the land, 

A magistrate pedantic ; 
And Medler's feet repose unscanned 

Beneath the wide Atlantic. 

Wild Nick, whose oaths made such a din, 

Does Dr. Martext's duty ; 
And Mullion, with that monstrous chin, 

Is married to a beauty ; 
And Darrel studies, week by week, 

His Mant and not his Manton ; 
And Ball, who was. but poor at Greek, 

Is very rich at Canton. 

And I am eight-and-twenty now — 
The world's cold chain has bound me ; 

And darker shades are on my brow, 
.And sadder scenes around me : 

In Parliament I fill my seat, 
With many other noodles ; 

And lay my head in G-ermyn-street, 
And sip my hock at Doodle's. 

But often when the cares of life 
Have set my temples aching, 

When visions haunt me of a wife, 
When duns await my waking, 



THE BELLE OF THE BALL; 37 

When Lady Jane is in a pet, 

Or Hobby in a hurry, 
When Captain Hazard wins a bet, 

Or Beaulieu spoils a curry : 

For hours and hours, I think and talk 

Of each remembered hobby : 
I long to lounge in Poet's Walk — 

Or shiver in the lobby ; 
I wish that I could run away 

From House, and court, and levee, 
Where bearded men appear to-day, 

Just Eton boys, grown heavy ; 

That I could bask in childhood's sun, 

And dance o'er childhood's roses ; 
And find huge wealth in one pound one, 

Vast wit in broken noses ; 
And pray Sir Giles at Datchet Lane, 

And call the milk-maids Houris ; 
That I could be a boy again — 

A happy boy at Drury's ! 

WlNTHROP MACKWORTH PrAED. 



Cje 13elU of tfje Ball. 

Years — years ago — ere yet my dreams 

Had been of being wise and witty ; 
Ere I had done with writing themes, 

Or yawned o'er this infernal Chitty ; 
Years, years ago, while all my joy 

Was in my fowling-piece and filly ; 
In short, while I was yet a boy, 

I fell in love with Laura Lilly. 
4 



S 8 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

I saw her at a country ball ; 

There when the sound of flute and fiddle 
Grave signal sweet in that old hall 

Of hands across and down the middle, 
Hers was the subtlest spell by far 

Of all that set young hearts romancing ; 
She was our queen, our rose, our star ; 

And when she danced — oh, heaven, her dancing 

Dark was her hair, her hand was white ; 

Her voice was exquisitely tender, 
Her eyes were full of liquid light ; 

I never saw a waist so slender ; 
Her very look, her very smile, 

Shot right and left a score of arrows ; 
I thought 't was Venus from her isle, 

I wondered where she 'd left her sparrows. 

She talked of politics or prayers ; 

Of Southey's prose, or Wordsworth's sonnets ; 
Of daggers or of dancing bears, 

Of battles, or the last new bonnets ; 
By candle-light, at twelve o'clock, 

To me it mattered not a tittle, 
If those bright lips had quoted Locke, 

I might have thought they murmured Little. 

Through sunny May, through sultry June, 

I loved her with a love eternal ; 
I spoke her praises to the moon, 

I wrote them for the Sunday Journal. 
My mother laughed ; I soon found out 

That ancient ladies have no feeling ; 
My father frowned ; but how should gout 

Find any happiness in kneeling ? 



THE BELLE OF THE BALL. 39 

She was the daughter of a dean, 

Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic ; 
She had one brother just thirteen, 

Whose color was extremely hectic ; 
Her grandmother for many a year 

Had fed the parish with her bounty ; 
Her second-cousin was a peer, 

And lord-lieutenant of the county. 

But titles and the three per cents.. 

And mortgages, and great relations, 
And India bonds, and tithes and rents, 

Oh ! what are they to love's sensations ? 
Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks, 

Such wealth, such honors, Cupid chooses ; 
He cares as little for the stocks, 

As Baron Rothschild for the muses. 

She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach, 

Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading; 
She botanized ; I envied each 

Young blossom in her boudoir fading ; 
She warbled Handel ; it was grand — 

She made the Catalani jealous ; 
She touched the organ ; I could stand 

For hours and hours and blow the bellows. 

She kept an album, too, at home, 

Well filled with all an album's glories: 
Paintings of butterflies and Rome, 

Patterns of trimmings, Persian stories ; 
Soft songs to Julia's cockatoo. 

Fierce odes to famine and to slaughter ; 
And autographs of Prince Leboo, 

And recipes of elder-water. 



4 PL A YD A T P OEMS. 

And she was flattered, worshiped, bored, 

Her steps were watched, her dress was noted, 
Her poodle-dog was quite adored, 

Her sayings were extremely quoted. 
She laughed, and every heart was glad 

As if the taxes were abolished ; 
She frowned, and every look was sad 

As if the opera were demolished. 

She smiled on many just for fun — 

I knew that there was nothing in it ; 
I was the first, the only one 

Her heart had thought of for a minute ; 
I knew it, for she told me so, 

In phrase which was divinely moulded ; 
She wrote a charming hand, and oh ! 

How sweetly all her notes were folded ! 

Our love was like most other loves — 

A little glow, a little shiver ; 
A rosebud and a pair of gloves, 

And "Fly not yet," upon the river; 
Some jealousy of some one's heir, 

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted, 
A miniature, a lock of hair, 

The usual vows — and then we parted. 

We parted — months and years rolled by ; 

We met again four summers after ; 
Our parting was all sob and sigh — 

Our meeting was all mirth and laughter ; 
For in my heart's most secret cell 

There had been many other lodgers ; 
And she was not the ball-room belle, 

But only Mrs. — Something — Rogers. 

WlNTHROP MACKWORTH PrAED. 



COUNTRY SLEIGHING. 41 



(Eoutttrg Sleigijmg. 

In January, when down the dairy 

The cream and clabber freeze, 
When snow-drifts cover the fences over, 

We farmers take our ease. 
At night we rig the team, 

And bring the cutter out ; 
Then fill it, fill it, fill it, fill it, 

And heap the furs about. 

Here friends and cousins dash up by dozens, 

And sleighs at least a score ; 
There John and Molly, behind, are jolly,— 

Nell rides with me, before. 
All down the village street 

We range us in a row : 
Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, 

And over the crispy snow ! 

The windows glisten, the old folks listen 

To hear the sleigh-bells pass ; 
The fields grow whiter, the stars are brighter, 

The road as smooth as glass. 
Our muffled faces burn, 

The clear north-wind blows cold, 
The girls all nestle, nestle, nestle, 

Each in her lover's hold. 

Through bridge and gateway we 're shooting 
straightway, 

Their toll-man was too slow ! 
He '11 listen after our song and laughter 

As over the hill we go. 
The girls cry, " Fie ! for shame ! " 

Their cheeks and lips are red, 



4 2 PL A Y-DAT P OEMS. 

And so with kisses, kisses, kisses, 
They take the toll instead. 

Still follow, follow ! across the hollow 

The tavern fronts the road. 
Whoa, now ! all steady ! the host is ready, — 

He knows the country mode ! 
The irons are in the fire, 

The hissing flip is got ; 
So pour and sip it, sip it, sip it, sip it, 

And sip it while 't is hot. 

Push back the tables, and from the stables 

Bring Tom, the fiddler, in ; 
All take your places, and make your graces, 

And let the dance begin. 
The girls are beating time 

To hear the music sound ; 
Now foot it, foot it, foot it, foot it, 

And swing your partners round. 

Last couple toward the left ! all forward ! 

Cotillons through, let 's wheel : 
First tune the fiddle, then down the middle 

In old Virginia Reel. 
Play Money Musk to close, 

Then take the "long chasse," 
While in to supper, supper, supper, supper, 

The landlord leads the way. 

The bells are ringing, the ostlers bringing 

The cutters up anew ; 
The beasts are neighing, too long we 're staying, 

The night is half way through. 
Wrap close the buffalo robes, 

We 're all aboard once more; 



THE UNIVERSITY OF GOTTINGEN. 43 

Now jingle, jingle, jingle, jingle, 
Away from the tavern-door. 

So follow, follow, by hill and hollow, 

And swiftly homeward glide. 
What midnight splendor ! how warm and tender 

The maiden by your side ! 
The sleighs drop far apart, 

Her words are soft and low ; 
Now, if you love her, love her, love her, 

'T is safe to tell her so. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman. 



Cf)e 2Eniberj3ttj) of (Sottmgen. 

Whene'er with haggard eyes I view 
This dungeon that I 'm rotting in, 
I think of those companions true 
Who studied with me at the U- 

niversity of G-ottingen, 
niversity of Gottingen. 

[ Weeps, and pulls out a blue kerchief, with which he wipes his eyes ; gazing 
tenderly at it, he proceeds :] 

Sweet kerchief, checked with heavenly blue, 

Which once my love sat knotting in — 
Alas, Matilda then was true ! 
At least I thought so at the U- 

niversity of Gottingen, 
niversity of Gottingen. 

Barbs ! barbs ! alas ! how swift you flew, 

Her neat post-wagon trotting in ! 
Ye bore Matilda from my view-; 
Forlorn I languished at the U- 

niversity of Gottingen, 
niversity of Gottingen. 



44 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

This faded form ! this pallid hue ! 

This blood my veins is clotting in ! 
My years are many — they were few 
When first I entered at the U- 

niversity of G-ottingen, 
niversity of G-ottingen. 

There first for thee my passion grew, 

Sweet, sweet Matilda Pottingen ! 
Thou wast the daughter of my tu- 
tor, law -professor at the U- 

niversity of G-ottingen, 
niversity of Gottingen. 

Sun, moon, and thou, vain world, adieu, 
That kings and priests are plotting in ; 
Here doomed to starve on water gru- 
el, never shall I see the U- 

niversity of Gottingen, 
niversity of Gottingen. 

George Canning. 

a iHercg iSallati of &f)m £opJomores an* a 
Coiuraoman. 

It is a lordly Sophomore, 

The thirstiest one of three, 
And he hath stopped at the toll-house door 

All under the greenwood tree. 

" Come hither, come hither, my merry-men both, 
And stand on either side : 
What see ye on the toll-house wall 
By the toll-house door so wide ? " 

They ha' lookit north — they ha* lookit south — 
They ha' lookit aboon the sky : 



A MERRY BALLAD. 45 

Then up and spake the first merry-man 
And thus he made reply : 

11 1 ha' lookit north — I ha' lookit south — 
I ha' lookit aboon the sky, 
Yet I see naught on the toll-house wall, 
Or the toll-house door thereby." 

Then up and spake the next merry-man 

With " Alack and woe betide ! 
For I 've left my glass on the green, green grass, 

All by the burnie's side. 

" So though I look north, and though I look south, 
And though I look straight before, 
I see nothing at all on the toll-house wall, 
Nor yet on the toll-house door." 

" Now shame! now shame! my merry-men both, 
For see ye not written here 
These words that tell of cakes to sell, 
And eke of the small, small beer ? 

" 1 1 have never a penny left in my purse — 
Never a penny but three, 
And one is brass and another is lead, 
And another is white money.' 

" But haud out your pouches o' gude green silk, 
Or the skin of the red deer fleet, 
And we 'se tak' a draught of the wee sma' beer 
And a bite of the seed-cake sweet." 

He hadna rapped a rap, a rap,— 

A rap but only three, 
When out and came the toll-house dame, 

Was a grisly wight to see. 



PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Her cheek was yellow, her throat was lean, 
Her eyes " baith blear and blin' : " 

No Soph hath half the beard, I ween, 
That flourished on her chin. 

" A boon ! a boon ! thou toll-woman, 
A boon thou 'se give to me, 
For a thirstier soul than I am one 
Lives not in Christiante. 

" I 've swallowed the sassafras in the wood 
And the dust on the king's highway. 
And the sorrel that grows on the sandy bank, 
Till my throat is as dry as hay." 

" seek ye of the red, red wine, 
Or seek ye of the white, 
To moisten your dainty clay withal, 

And your whistles both shrill and slight? " 

" We seek not of the red, red wine — 
We seek not of the white : 
We seek but a draught of the small, small beer, 
Of the seed-cake only a bite." 

" Then show me the red, red gold," quo' she. 
" And show me the silver fine, 
And show me a roll of the green, green back, 
Or you 'se get no beer of mine." 

Then up and spake the first merry-man, — 
By several saints he swore ; 
" I have but an Index-check* in my pouch, 
And the devil a penny more." 

* Entitling the holder to one Index to the Yale Literary Magazine. 



MEETING OF HAR YARD COLLEGE ALU MNL 4 7 

Then up and spake the next merry -man — 
" And I 've but a soda-ticket, 
And a crumpled two-cent revenue stamp 
With no gum-stickum to stick it." 

"Aroint! Aroint! ye beggarly loons, 
From under my threshold tree! 
What good to me is a revenue stamp, 
Or an Index-check perdy ? 

" A soda ticket ? A soda fiddle- 
Stick ! Pesky belly- wash ! 
Them folks as like it may swill sick fizz, 
In their stomachs to rumble and swash : 

" But as for me, I '11 stick to my cider, 
And eke to the small, small beer, 
And sell it to them as have money to pay ; 
But you — get out o' here ! " 

Then beerless to the dusty road 

Turned each bold Sophomore, 
While with a slam behind him closed 

The heavy toll-house door. 

Henry A. Beers. 

Meeting of tfje &lumm of J^arbar* College. 

1857. 

I thank you, Mr. President, you 've kindly broke the ice ; 
Virtue should always be the first, — I 'm only Second Vice — 
(A vice is something with a screw that 's made to hold its 

jaw 
Till some old file has played away upon an ancient saw.) 

Sweet brothers by the Mother's side, the babes of days gone 

by, 

All nurslings of her Juno breasts whose milk is never dry, 



4 8 PL A Y-DAY P OEMS. 

We come again, like half-grown boys, and gather at her 

beck 
About her knees, and on her lap, and clinging round her 

neck. 

We find her at her stately door, and in her ancient chair, 
Dressed in the robes of red and green she always loved to 

wear. 
Her eye has all its radiant youth, her cheek its morning 

flame; 
We drop our roses as we go, hers flourish still the same. 

We have been playing many an hour, and far away we 've 

strayed, 
Some laughing in the cheerful sun, some lingering in the 

shade ; 
And some have tired, and laid them down where darker 

shadows fall, — 
Dear as her loving voice may be, they cannot hear its call. 

What miles we 've traveled since we shook the dew-drops 

from our shoes 
We gathered on this classic green, so famed for heavy dues ! 
How many boys have joined the game, how many slipped 

away, 
Since we 've been running up and down, and having out 

our play ! 

One boy at work with book and brief, and one with gown 

and band, 
One sailing vessels on the pool, one digging in the sand, 
One flying paper kites on 'change, one planting little pills, — 
The seeds of certain annual flowers well known as little bills. 

What maidens met us on our way, and clasped us hand in 

hand! 
What cherubs, — not the legless kind, that fly, but never 

stand 1 



MEETING OF HARVARD COLLEGE ALUMNI. 49 

How many a youthful head we 've seen put on its silver 

crown ! 
What sudden changes back again to youth's empurpled 

brown ! 

But fairer sights have met our eyes, and broader lights have 
shone, 

Since others lit their midnight lamps where once we trim- 
med our own ; 

A thousand trains that flap the sky with flags of rushing 
fire, 

And, throbbing in the Thunderer's hand, Thought's million- 
chorded lyre. 

We 've seen the sparks of Empire fly beyond the mountain 
bars, 

Till, glittering o'er the Western wave, they joined the setting- 
stars ; 

And ocean trodden into paths that trampling giants ford, 

To find the planet's vertebrae and sink its spinal cord. 

We 've tried reform, — and chloroform, — and both have 
turned our brain ; 

When France called up the photograph, we roused the foe 
to pain ; 

Just so those earlier sages shared the chaplet of renown, — 

Hers sent a bladder to the clouds, ours brought their light- 
ning down. 

We 've seen the little tricks of life, its varnish and veneer, 

Its stucco-fronts of character flake off and disappear ; 

We 've learned that oft the brownest hands will heap the 

biggest pile, 
And met with many a " perfect brick " beneath a rimless 

"tile." 

5 



50 PLAY-BAY POEMS. 

What dreams we 've had of deathless name, as scholars, 

statesmen, bards, 
While Fame, the lady with the trump, held up her picture 

cards ! 
Till, having nearly played our game, she gayly whispered, 

"Ah! 
I said you should be something grand, — you '11 soon be 

grandpapa." 

Well, well, the old have had their day, the young must take 

their turn; 
There 's something always to forget, and something still to 

learn ; 
But how to tell what 's old or young, the tap-root from the 

sprigs, 
Since Florida revealed her fount to Ponce de Leon Twiggs? 

The wisest was a Freshman once, just freed from bar and 

bolt, 
As noisy as a kettle-drum, as leggy as a colt ; 
Don't be too savage with the boys, — the Primer does not 

say 
The kitten ought to go to church because "the cat doth 

prey." 

The law of merit and of age is not the rule of three ; 

Non constat that A. M. must prove as busy as A- B. 

When Wise the father tracked the son, ballooning through 

the skies, 
He taught a lesson to the old, — go thou and do like Wise ! 

Xow then, old boys, and reverend youth, of high or low 

degree, 
Remember how we only get one annual out of three, 
And such as dare to simmer down three dinners into one 
Must cut their salads mighty short, and pepper well with 

fun. 



THE OLD VILLAGE CHOIR. 51 

I 've passed my zenith long ago, it 's time for me to set; 
A dozen planets wait to shine, and 1 am lingering yet, 
As sometimes in the blaze of day a milk-and- watery moon 
Stains with its dim and fading ray the lustrous blue of 
noon. 

Farewell ! yet let one echo rise to shake our ancient hall : 
God save the Queen, — whose throne is here, — the Mother of 

us all ! 
Till dawns the great commencement-day on every shore 

and sea, 
And " Expectantur " all mankind, to take their last Degree! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



€f)e (Bits ^Tillage OHjoir. 

I have fancied, sometimes, the Bethel-bent beam 

That trembled to earth in the patriarch's dream 

Was a ladder of song in that wilderness rest, 

From the pillow of stone to the blue of the Blest, 

And the angels descending to dwell with us here, 

"Old Hundred," and "Corinth," and "China," and "Mear. 

All the hearts are not dead, nor under the sod, 

That those breaths can blow open to heaven and God. 

Ah ! " Silver Street" leads by a bright golden road — 

Oh, not to the hymns that in harmony flowed — 

But the sweet human psalms of the old-fashioned choir, 

To the girl that sang alto, the girl that sang air ! 

" Let us sing to God's praise," the minister said. 

All the psalm-books at once fluttered open at " York; " 

Sunned their long dotted wings in the words that he read, 

While the leader leaped into the tune just ahead, 

And politely picked up the key-note with a fork, 



5 2 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

And the vicious old viol went growling along 
At the heels of the girls in the rear of the song. 

I need not a wing — bid no genii to come, 

With a wonderful web from Arabian loom, 

To bear me again up the river of Time, 

When the world was in rhythm, and life was its rhyme ; 

And the stream of the years flowed so noiseless and narrow. 

That across it there floated the song of a sparrow ; 

For a sprig of green caraway carries me there, 

To the old village church and the old village choir, 

Where clear of the floor my feet slowly swung, 

And timed the sweet pulse of the praise that they sung, 

Till the glory aslant from the afternoon sun 

Seemed the rafters of gold in Grod's temple begun ! 

You may smile at the nasals of old Deacon Brown, 
Who followed by scent till he ran the tune down ; 
And dear sister Green, with more goodness than grace, 
Rose and fell on the tunes as she stood in her place, 
And where "Coronation" exultingly flows, 
Tried to reach the high notes on the tips of her toes ! 
To the land of the leal they have gone with their song, 
Where the choir and the chorus together belong. 
0, be lifted, ye gates ! Let me hear them again ; 
Blessed song, blessed singers, forever, Amen ! 

Bexjamix F. Taylor. 



Cije JEtusfcal JFioqz. 

Brekekekex ! coax ! coax ! happy, happy frogs I 
How sweet ye sing! would G-od that I 
Upon the bubbling pool might lie, 
And sun myself to-day 



THE MUSICAL FROGS. 53 

With you! No curtained bride, I ween, 
Nor pillowed babe, nor cushioned queen, 
Nor tiny fay on emerald green, 

Nor silken lady gay, 
Lies on a softer couch. Heaven ! 
How many a lofty mortal, riven 

By keen-fanged inflammation, 
Might change his lot with yours, to float 
On sunny pond, with bright green coat, 
And sing with gently throbbing throat 

Amid the croaking nation, 
Brekekekex ! coax ! coax ! happy, happy frogs ! 

Brekekekex ! coax ! coax ! happy, happy frogs ! 
Happy the bard who weaves his rhyme 
Recumbent on the purple thyme, 

In the fragrant month of June ; 
Happy the sage whose lofty mood 
Doth with far-searching ken intrude 
Into the vast infinitude 

Of things beyond the moon ; 
But happier not the wisest man 
Whose daring thought leads on the van 

Of star-eyed speculation, 
Than thou, quick-legged, light-bellied thing, 
Within the green pond's reedy ring. 
That with a murmurous joy dost sing 

Among the croaking nation, 
Brekekekex ! coax ! coax ! happy happy frogs ! 

Brekekekex! coax! coax! happy, happy frogs! 
Great Jove with dark clouds sweeps the sky, 
Where thunders roll and lightnings fly, 

And gusty winds are roaring ; 
Fierce Mars his stormy steed bestrides, 
And, lashing wild its bleeding sides, 



5 4 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

O'er dead and dying madly rides, 

Where the iron hail is pouring. 
'T is well — such crash of mighty powers 
Must be : the spell may not be ours 

To tame the hot creation. 
But little frogs with paddling foot 
Can sing when gods and kings dispute, 
And little bards can strum the lute 

Amid the croaking nation, 
With Brekekekex ! coax ! coax ! happy, happy frogs ! 

Brekekekex ! coax ! coax ! happy; happy frogs ! 
Farewell ! not always I may sing 
Around the green pond's reedy ring 

With you, ye boggy muses ! 
But I must go and do stern battle 
With herds of stiff-necked human cattle, 
Whose eager lust of windy prattle 

The gentle rein refuses. 

if — but all such ifs are vain ; 

1 '11 go and blow my trump again, 

With brazen iteration ; 
And when, by Logic's iron rule, 
I 've quashed each briskly babbling fool, 
I '11 seek again your gentle school, 
And hum beside the tuneful pool 
Amid the croaking nation, 
Brekekekex ! coax ! coax ! happy, happy frogs ! 

John Stuart Blackie. 

Cije ^umioat Roman's ietorg, 

[ 'm old, my dears, and shriveled, with age, and work, and 

grief, 
My eyes are gone, and my teeth have been drawn by Time, 

the thief ! 



THE BUMBO AT WOMAN'S STORY. 55 

For terrible sights I 've seen, and dangers great I 've run — 
I 'm nearly seventy now, and my work is almost done ! 



Ah! I 've been young in my time, and I 've played the 

deuce with men — 
I 'm speaking of ten years past — I was barely sixty then : 
My cheeks were mellow and soft, and my eyes were large 

and sweet, 
Poll Pineapple's eyes were the standing toast of the Royal 

Fleet. 

A bumboat woman was I, and I faithfully served the ships 

With apples and cakes, and fowls and beer, and halfpenny 
dips, 

And beef for the generous mess, where the officers dine at 
nights, 

And fine fresh peppermint drops for the rollicking midship- 
mites. 

Of all the kind commanders who anchored in Portsmouth 

Bay, 
By far the sweetest of all was kind Lieutenant Belaye. 
Lieutenant Belaye commanded the gun-boat Hot Cross 

Bun, 
She was seven-and-thirty feet in length, and she carried a 

gun. 

With the laudable view of enhancing his country's naval 
pride, 

When people inquired her size, Lieutenant Belaye replied, 

" Oh, my ship? my ship is the first of the hundred and sev- 
enty-ones ! " 

Which meant her tonnage, but people imagined it meant her 
guns. 



56 PLA YDA Y POEMS. 

Whenever I went on board he would beckon me down be- 
low, 

"Come down, Little Buttercup, come" (for he loved to call 
me so). 

And he 'd tell of the fight at sea in which he 'd taken a parr. 

And so Lieutenant Belaye won poor Poll Pineapple's heart ! 

But at length his orders came, and he said one da}-, said he. 
1; I 'm ordered to sail with the Hot Cross Bun to the German 

Sea." 
And the Portsmouth maidens wept when they learnt the 

evil day, 
For every Portsmouth maid loved good Lieutenant Belaye. 

And I went to a back, back street, with plenty of cheap, 

cheap shops, 
And I bought an oilskin hat, and a second-hand suit of slops, 
And I went to Lieutenant Belaye (and he never suspected 

me), 
And I entered myself as a chap as wanted to go to sea. 

We sailed that afternoon at the mystic hour of one, — 
Remarkably nice young men were the crew of the Hot Cross 

Bun. 
I 'm sorry to say that I 've heard that sailors sometimes 

swear, 
But I never yet heard a Bun say anything wrong. I declare. 

When Jack Tars meet, they meet with a " Messmates, ho ! 

What cheer?" 
But here, on the Hot Cross Bun, it was " How do you do, 

my dear? " 
When Jack Tars growl. I believe they growl with a big. big 

D , 

But the strongest oath of the Hot Cross Bun was a mild 

" Dear me ! " 



THE B UMB OA T WOMAN ' S S TOR Y. 5 7 

Yet, though they were all well-bred, you could hardly call 
them slick : 

And whenever a sea was on, they were all extremely sick; 

And whenever the weather was calm, and the wind was 
light and fair, 

They spent more time than a sailor should on his back, back- 
hair. 

They certainly shivered and shook when ordered aloft to 

run, 
And they screamed when Lieutenant Belaye discharged his 

only gun. 
And as he was proud of his gun — such pride is hardly 

wrong — 
The Lieutenant was blazing away at intervals all day long. 

They all agreed very well, though at times you heard it said 
That Bill had a way of his own of making his lips look red — 
That Joe looked quite his age — or somebody might declare 
That Barnacle's long pig-tail was never his own, own hair. 

Belaye would admit that his men were of little use to him, 
"But then," he would say, " there is little to do on a gun- 
boat trim. 
I can haul, and reef, and steer, and fire my big gun too — 
And it is such a treat to sail with a gentle, well-bred crew." 



I saw him every day ! How the happy moments sped ! 
Reef topsails! Make all taut! There 's dirty weather ahead ! 
(I do not mean that tempests threatened the Hot Cross Bun : 
In that case I don't know whatever we should have done !) 

After a fortnight's cruise, we put into port one day, 
And off on leave for a week went kind Lieutenant Belaye, 
5* 



58 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

And after a long, long week had passed (and it seemed like 

a life), 
Lieutenant Belay e returned to his ship with a fair young 

wife ! 

He up and he says, says he, " crew of the Hot Cross Bun, 
Here is the wife of my heart, for the church has made us 

one ! " 
And as he uttered the word, the crew went out of their 

wits, 
And all fell down in so many fainting fits. 

And then their hair came down, or off, as the case might be, 
And lo ! the rest of the crew were simple girls, like me, 
Who all had fled from their homes in a sailor's blue array, 
To follow the shifting fate of kind Lieutenant Belaye. 

It 's strange to think that / should ever have loved young 

men, 
But I 'm speaking of ten years past — I was barely sixty 

then, 
And now my cheeks are furrowed with grief and age, I 

trow ! 
And poor Poll Pineapple's eyes have lost their lustre now ! 

William S. Gilbert. 

Cj)e Jtrtejjman. 

There was a lady lived at Leith, 

A lady very stylish, man — 
And yet, in spite of all her teeth, 
She fell in love with an Irishman— 
A nasty, ugly Irishman — 
A wild, tremendous Irishman — 
A tearing, swearing, thumping, bumping, ranting, roaring 
Irishman. 



THE IRISHMAN. 59 

His face was no ways beautiful, 

For with small pox 't was scarred across; 
And the shoulders of the ugly dog 
Were almost double a yard across. 
0, the lump of an Irishman — 
The whisky devouring Irishman — 
The great he-rogue with his wonderful brogue — the lighting, 
rioting Irishman. 

One of his eyes was bottle-green, 

And the other eye was out, my dear ; 
And the calves of his wicked-looking legs 
Were more than two feet about, my dear ! 
0, the great big Irishman — 
The rattling, battling Irishman — 
The stamping, ramping, swaggering, staggering, leathering 
swash of an Irishman. 

He took so much of Lundy-foot 

That he used to snort and snuffle oh ; 
And in shape and size the fellow's neck 
Was as bad as the neck of a buffalo. 
0, the horrible Irishman — 
The thundering, blundering Irishman — 
The slashing, dashing, smashing, lashing, thrashing, hashing 
Irishman. 

His name was a terrible name, indeed, 

Being Timothy Thady Mulligan ; 
And whenever he emptied his tumbler of punch 
He 'd not rest till he filled it full again ; 
The boozing, bruising Irishman — 
The 'toxicated Irishman — 
The whisky, frisky, rummy, gummy, brandy, no dandy Irish- 
man. 

This was the lad the lady loved, 
Like all the girls of quality ; 



60 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

And he broke the skulls of the men of Leith, 
Just by the way of jollity ; 
0, the leathering Irishman — 
The barbarous, savage Irishman — 
The hearts of the maids and the gentlemen's heads wen 
bothered I 'm sure by this Irishman. 

William Maginn. 



irotrotos of fc&lectijei;. 

Werther had a love for Charlotte 

Such as words could never utter. 
Would you know how first he met her ? 

She was cutting bread and butter. 

Charlotte was a married \s.dy, 

And a moral man was Werther, 
And for all the wealth of Indies 

Would do nothing for to hurt her. 

So he sighed and pined and ogled, 
And his passion boiled and bubbled, 

Till he blew his silly brains out. 
And no more was by it troubled. 

Charlotte, having seen his body 

Borne before her on a shutter, 
Like a well conducted person, 

Went on cutting bread and butter. 

William Makepeace Thackerav. 



Ci)e Uatttj o' OTocfcpnt. 

The laird o' Cockpen he 's proud and he 's great. 
His mind is ta'en up with the things o' the state 



THE LAMB 0' COCKPEN. 61 

He wanted a wife his braw house to keep, 
But favor wi' wooin' was fashious to seek. 



Down by the dyke-side a lady did dwell, 
At his table-head he thought she 'd look well 
M'Lish's ae daughter o' Claverse-ha' Lee, 
A penniless lass wi' a lang pedigree. 



His wig was weel pouthered, and as gude as new ; 
His waistcoat was white, his coat it was blue ; 
He put on a ring, a sword, and cocked hat, 
And wha could refuse the Laird wi' a' that ? 

He took the gray mare, and rade cannily — 
And rapped at the yett o' Claverse-ha' Lee : 
" Gae tell Mistress Jean to come speedily ben, 
She 's wanted to speak to the Laird o' Cockpen." 

Mistress Jean was makin' the elder-flower wine: 
" And what brings the Laird at sic a like time ? " 
She put aff her apron, and on her silk gown, 
Her mutch wi' red ribbons, and gaed awa down. 

And when she cam' ben, he bowed fu' low, 
And what was his errand he soon let her know ; 
Amazed was the Laird when the lady said "Na"; 
And wi' a laigh curtsey she turned awa'. 

Dumbfounded he was — nae sigh did he gie ; 

He mounted his mare — he rade cannily ; 

And aften he thought, as he gaed through the glen, 

She 's daft to refuse the Laird o' Cockpen. 

And now that the Laird his exit had made, 
Mistress Jean she reflected on what she had said ; 
" Oh ! for ane I '11 get better, it 's waur I '11 get ten, 
I was daft to refuse the Laird o' Cockpen." 
6 



62 PLAY-BAY POEMS. 

Next time that the Laird and the lady were seen, 
They were gaim arm-in-arm to the kirk on the green. 
Now she sits in the ha' like a weel-tappit hen — 
But as yet there 's nae chickens appeared at Cockpen. 

Lady Nairne. 

a Mijgme of tije l&am. 

Like a blotch upon a beauty, 

Comes a cloud across the sky ; 
Like an unrelenting duty, 

Fall the rain-drops from on high ; 
Like death upon a holiday, 

Like sleigh-ride upon wheels, 
Like jilting on a jolly day, 

Like medicine at meals, 
Sets in a storm preposterous, 

Of every plan the bane ; 
Now sullen, and now boisterous, 
Malicious, mean, or roisterous, 
But always moist and moisture -ous, 

Forever on the gain, 

And never on the wane, 
Bringing sudden consternation, 
And a long-drawn botheration, 
To the men upon the house-top, and the cattle in the plain. 
How it pours, pours, pours, 

In a never-ending sheet! 
How it drives beneath the doors ! 

How it soaks the passer's feet ! 
How it rattles on the shutter ! 

How it rumples up the lawn ! 
How 't will sigh, and moan, and mutter, 

From darkness until dawn ! — 
Making human life a burden, 

Making joy a flimsy wile, 



A RHYME OF THE RAIN. QQ 

Making bondage seem a guerdon 
In the rainless fields of Egypt, by the clever river Nile. 

Yet how pleasantly the rain, 

With its delicate refrain, 
May sing away the sultriness of summer day or night! 

Set the drooping grass a-springing, 

And the robin's throat a-ringing, 
Fill the meadow-lands with verdure, and the hills with glis- 
tening light ! 

Or in April fickle-hearted, 

Ere the chill has quite departed, 
That the frosts, and the snows, and the howling winds, have 
brought, 

When all the signs of gladness 

Take a sombre tinge of sadness, 
For days and deeds that come no more, and dreams that 
fell to naught ! 

Then in half -unwelcome leisure, 

'T is a sort of solemn pleasure 

To sit beside the ingle, 

Or to lie beneath the shingle, 
And listen to the patter of the rain, rain, rain, 

To the drip, drip, drip, 

And the patter, patter, patter, 
On the roof, and the shutter, and the pane, pane, pane. 

But whether night or day-time, 
In harvest-time or play-time, 
And whether pour or patter, 
The early rain or latter 
Reigns over human purpose, and plays with human fears — ■ 
Sets mighty armies shouting, 
Sends little Cupid pouting, 
Turns trusting into doubting, 
And triumph into tears. 



64 PLA YD A Y POEMS. 

Oh ! sadly I remember 

One treacherous September, 
When the autumn equinoctial came a week or so too soon. 

I had started with a cousin, 

For the church, among a dozen 

Maids and matrons who were airing 

The "fall styles," and gayly wearing 
The very newest, sweetest thing in bonnets 'neath the 
moon. 

And midway of the journey, 

Like a thousand knights in tourney, 
The leveled lances of the rain drove furious at our breast ; 

And the "fall styles" fell and wilted, 

On the dames so proudly kilted, 
And by sudden transformation worse than worst became 
the best. 

Though I now am sere and yellow, 

I was then a valiant fellow, 
And esteemed it more a joy to serve the ladies than to live. 

Imagine, then, my feelings, 

'Mid the shrinkings and the squealings, 
When my "water-proof" umbrella proved a sieve, sieve, 

sieve ! 
When my shiny new umbrella proved a sieve ! 

What a sorr}'- lot of mortals 

Sat within the sacred portals, 
In their mermaid millinery looking sad, sad, sad ! 

Nothing dry except the sermon, 

Which discoursed on dews of Hermon 
And the streams which, saith the Scripture, do make glad, 
glad, glad! 

So the preacher praised the waters 

To those mothers, wives, and daughters, 
Every dripping, draggled one of whom was mad, mad, mad-! 

And my bright and handsome cousin, 

Sweetest girl among the dozen. 



A BHYME OF THE BAIN. 65 

Or among a dozen dozen you might meet along the way, 

Then a hopeful, sprightly lassie, 

Now, I fear, a little passee, 
Dates the ruin of her chances from that rainy Sabbath-day. 

She had spent her last round dollar 

For the bonnet, gloves, and collar, 
That should have proved effective on the smart young pul- 
piteer ; 

But he rode home in the carriage 

Of her rival, and their marriage 
Was solemnized (my cousin's word) in less than half a year. 



But gladly I remember 

One crimson-hued September, 
When we strayed along the hedges and within the gorgeous 
wold; 

A merry autumn party 

Of men and maidens hearty, 
Rejoicing in the foliage of scarlet and of gold; 

And ere we thought of turning, 

Or saw a sign of warning, 
We heard upon the fallen leaves the footsteps of the rain. 

Away went rules conventional ! 

And I, with haste intentional, 
Just clapped my good old broad-brim on the head of Annie 
Blaine. 

That extemporized umbrella 

Threw cold water on a fellow 
Who was courting, in a lazy sort of way, Miss Annie Blaine ; 

While it made me quite a gallant, 

And a fine young man of talent, 
In the eyes and estimation of the beauteous Annie Blaine. 

In the dreamy summer haze 

Of my far-off boyish days, 
I had chased the luring butterfly across the grassy plain, 



66 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

But I never threw my hat 

O'er a prize so fair as that 
When it sheltered, caught, and gave me, the lovely Annie 
Blaine. 

And I 've blessed that gentle rain 

Again and yet again, 
For the flowers it set blooming in my life; 

For the crimson and the gold 

That adorn the little fold 
Where I find an autumn shelter with my wife. 

Rossiter Johnson.! 

Cf)e OTocfc an* tjje iSulL 

You see this pebble-stone ? It 's a thing I bought 

Of a bit of a chit of a boy i' the mid o' the day — 

I like to dock the smaller parts-o'-speech, 

As we curtail the already cur-tailed cur 

(You catch the paronomasia, play o' words ?) 

Did, rather, i' the pre-Landseerian days. 

Well, to my muttons. I purchased the concern, 

And clapt it i' my poke, and gave for same 

By way, to- wit, of barter or exchange — 

" Chop " was my snickering dandiprat's own term — 

One shilling and fourpence, current coin o' the realm. 

O-n-e one and f-c—u-r four 

Pence, one and fourpence — you are with me sir ? — 

What hour it skills not : ten or eleven o' the clock, 

One day (and what a roaring day it was !) 

In February, eighteen sixty-nine, 

Alexandrina Victoria, Fidei 

Hm — hm — how runs the jargon? being on throne. 

Such, sir, are all the facts, succinctly put, 
The basis or substratum — what you will — 
Of the impending eighty thousand lines. 



THE COOK AND THE BULL. 67 

" Not much in 'em either," quoth perhaps simple Hodge. 
But there's a superstructure. Wait a bit. 



Mark first the rationale of the thing: 

Hear logic rivel and levigate the deed. 

That shilling — and for matter o' that the pence — 

I had o' course upo' me — wi' me say — 

(Mecum 's the Latin, make a note of that) 

When I popped pen i' stand, blew snout, scratched ear, 

Sniffed — tch ! — at snuff-box ; tumbled up, he-heed, 

Haw-hawed (not hee-hawed, that's another guess thing:) 

Then fumbled at, and stumbled out of, door, 

I shoved the door ope wi' my omoplat ; 

And in vestibulo, i' the entrance hall, 

Donned galligaskins, antigropeloes, 

And so forth ; and, complete with hat and gloves, 

One on and one a-dangle i' my hand, 

And ombrifuge (Lord love you !), case o' rain, 

I flopped forth, 'sbuddikins ! on my own ten toes, 

(I do assure you there be ten of them,) 

And went clump-clumping up hill and down dale 

To find myself o' the sudden i' front o' the boy. 

Put case I had n't 'em on me, could I ha' bought 

This sort-o'-kind-o'-what-you-might-call toy, 

This pebble-thing o' the boy-thing ? Q. E. D. 

That 's proven without aid from mumping Pope, 

Sleek porporate or bloated cardinal. 

(Is n't it, old Fatchaps ? You 're in Euclid now.) 

So, having the shilling — having i' fact a lot — 

And pence and halfpence, ever so many o' them, 

I purchased, as I think I said before, 

The pebble (lapis, lapidis-di-dem-de — 

What nouns 'crease short i' the genitive, Fatchaps, eh ?) 

0' the boy, a bare-legged beggarly son of a gun, 

For one and fourpence. Here we are again. 



68 PLAY-DAT POEMS. 

Now Law steps in, big-wigged, voluminous-jawed ; 
Investigates and re-investigates. 
Was the transaction illegal ? Law shakes head. 
Perpend, sir, all the bearings of the case. 

At first the coin was mine, the chattel his. 

But now (by virtue of the said exchange 

And barter) vice versa all the coin, 

Per juris operationem, vests 

I' the boy and his assigns till ding o' doom ; 

(In scecula sceculo-o-o-orum ; 

I think I hear the Abate mouth out that.) 

To have and hold the same to him and them. 

Confer some idiot on Conveyancing. 

Whereas the pebble and every part thereof, 

And all that appertaineth thereunto, 

Or shall, will, may, might, can, could, would, or should, 

(Subaudi ccetera — clap we to the close — 

For what 's the good of law in a case o' the kind) 

Is mine to all intents and purposes. 

This settled, I resume the thread o' the tale. 

Now for a touch o' the vendor's quality. 

He says a gen'l'man bought a pebble of him, 

(This pebble i' sooth, sir, which I hold i' my hand) — 

And paid for 't, like a gen'l'man, on the naiL 

Did I o'ercharge him a ha'penny ? Devil a bit. 

Fiddlestick's end ! Get out, you blazing ass ! 

Gabble o' the goose. Do n't bugaboo-baby me ! 

Go double or quits ? Yah ! tittup ! What 's the odds ? 

— There 's the transaction viewed in the vendor's light. 

Next ask that dumpled hag, stood snuffling by, 
With her three frowsy-blowsy brats o' babes, 
The scum o' the kennel, cream o' the filth-heap — Faugh ! 
Aie, aie, aie, aie! otototototoc, 



THE CO CK AND THE B ULL. 6 9 

('Stead which we blurt out Hoighty-toighty now) — 
And the baker and candlestick-maker, and Jack and Gill, 
Bleared Goody this and greasy Gaffer that. 
Ask the school-master. Take school-master first. 

He saw a gentleman purchase of a lad 

A stone, and pay for it rite, on the square, 

And carry it off per saltum, jauntily, 

Propria quce maribus, gentleman's property now 

(Agreeably to the law explained above), 

In proprium usum, for his private ends. 

The boy he chucked a brown i' the air, and bit 

I' the face the shilling : heaved a thumping stone 

At a lean hen that ran cluck-clucking by, 

(And hit her, dead as nail i' post o' door,) 

Then abiit — what 's the Ciceronian phrase ? — 

Excessit, evasit, erupit — off slogs boy ; 

Off in three flea-skips. Hactenus, so far, 

So good, tarn bene. Bene, satis, male, — 

Where was I ? who said what of one in a quag ? 

I did once hitch the syntax into verse : 

Verbum personate, a verb personal, 

Concordat — ay, " agrees," old Fatchaps — cum 

Nominativo, with its nominative, 

Genere, i' the point o' gender, numero, 

0' number, et persona, and person. TJt, 

Instance : Sol ruit, down flops sun, et and, 

Monies umbrantur, snuffs out mountains. Pah ! 

Excuse me, sir, I think I 'm going mad. 

You see the trick on 't though, and can yourself 

Continue the discourse ad libitum. 

It takes up about eighty thousand lines, 

A thing imagination boggles at : 

And might, odds-bobs, sir ! in judicious hands, 

Extend from here to Mesopotamy. 

Charles S. Calverley. 
6* 



70 PLAT-DAY POEMS. 

Mx. Jfloiong's account of tje ISall 

GIVEN TO THE NEPAULESE AMBASSADOR BY THE PENINSULAR 
AND ORIENTAL COMPANY. 

will ye choose to hear the news ? 
Bedad, I cannot pass it o'er : 

1 '11 tell you all about the ball 

To the Naypaulase ambassador. 
Begor! this fete all balls does bate 

At which I worn a pump, and I 
Must here relate the splendthor great 

Of th' Oriental company. 

These men of sinse dispoised expinse, 

To fete these black Achilleses. 
"We'll show the blacks," says they, "Ahnack's, 

And take the rooms at Willis's." 
With flags and shawls, for these Nepauls, 

They hung the rooms of Willis up, 
And decked the walls, and stairs, and halls, 

With roses and with lilies up. 

And Jullien's band it tuck its stand, 

So sweetly in the middle there, 
And soft bassoons played heavenly chunes, 

And violins did fiddle there. 
And when the coort was tired of spoort, 

I 'd lave you, boys, to think there was 
A nate buffet before them set, 

Where lashings of good dhrink there was ! 

At ten, before the ball-room door 

His moighty excellency was ; 
He smoiled and bowed to all the crowd — 

So gorgeous and immense he was. 



MB. MOLONY'S ACCOUNT OF THE BALL. 71 

His dusky shuit, sublime and mute, 

Into the door-way followed him ; 
And oh the noise of the blackguard boys, 

As they hurrood and hollowed him ! 

The noble chair stud at the stair, 

And bade the dthrums to thump ; and he 
Did thus evince to that black prince 

The welcome of his company. 
fair the girls, and rich the curls, 

And bright the oys you saw there, was ; 
And fixed each oye, ye there could spoi, 

On G-ineral Jung Bahawther was ! 

This gineral great then tuck his sate, 

With all the other ginerals, 
(Bedad, his troat, his belt, his coat, 

All bleezed with precious minerals ;) 
And as he there, with princely air, 

Recloining on his cushion was, 
All round about his royal chair 

The squeezin and the pushin was. 

Pat, such girls, such jukes and earls, 

Such fashion and nobilitee ! 
Just think of Tim, and fancy him 

Amidst the hoigh gentility ! 
There was Lord De L'Huys, and the Portygeese 

Ministher and his lady there ; 
And I reckonized, with much surprise, 

Our messmate, Bob 0' Grady, there. 

There was Baroness Brunow, that looked like Juno, 

And Baroness Rehausen there, 
And Countess Roullier, that looked peculiar 

Well in her robes of gauze, in there. 



72 TLA T-BA Y POEMS. 

There was Lord Crowhurst (I knew him first 

When only Mr. Pips he was), 
And Mick O'Toole, the great big fool, 

That after supper tipsy was. 

There was Lord Fingall and his ladies all, 

And Lords Killeen and Dufferin, 
And Paddy Fife, with his fat wife — 

I wondther how he could stuff her in. 
There was Lord Belfast, that by me passed, 

And seemed to ask how should / go there ; 
And the widow Macrae, and Lord A. Hay, 

And the marchioness of Sligo there. 

Yes, jukes and earls, and diamonds and pearls, 

And pretty girls, was spoorting there ; 
And some beside (the rogues !) I spied 

Behind the windies, coorting there. 
0, there 's one I know, bedad, would show 

As beautiful as any there ; 
And I 'd like to hear the pipers blow, 

And shake a fut with Fanny there ! 

William Makepeace Thackeray. 



& ISlacfe gofc. 

The history of human-kind to trace 

Since Eve — the first of dupes — our doom unriddled. 
A certain portion of the human race 

Has certainly a taste for being diddled. 

Witness the famous Mississippi dreams ! 

A rage that time seems only to redouble — 
The Banks, Joint-Stocks, and all the flimsy schemes, 
For rolling in Pactolian streams. 



A BLACK JOB. 73 

That cost our modern rogues so little trouble. 
No matter what, — to pasture cows on stubble, 

To twist sea-sand into a solid rope, 
To make French bricks and fancy bread of rubble, 
Or light with gas the whole celestial cope — 

Only propose to blow a bubble, 
And Lord ! what hundreds will subscribe for soap ! 

Soap ! it reminds me of a little tale, 

Though not a pig's, the hawbuck's glory, 
When rustic games and merriment prevail — 
But here 's my story : 

Once on a time — no matter when — 
A knot of very charitable men 
Set up a Philanthropical Society, 
Professing on a certain plan, 
To benefit the race of man, 
And in particular that dark variety, 
Which some suppose inferior — as in vermin, 

The sable is to ermine, 
As smut to flour, as coal to alabaster, 

As crows to swans, as soot to driven snow, 
As blacking, or as ink to "milk below," 
Or yet, a better simile to show, 
As ragman's dolls to images in plaster ! 

However, as is usual in our city, 

They had a sort of managing committee, 

A board of grave responsible Directors — 
A Secretary, good at pen and ink — 
A Treasurer, of course, to keep the chink, 

And quite an army of Collectors ! 
Not merely male, but female duns, 

Young, old, and middle-aged — of all degrees — 
With many of those persevering ones, 

Who mite by mite would beg a cheese ! 

7 



74 PL A Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

And what might be their aim ? 

To rescue Afric's sable sons from fetters — 
To save their bodies from the burning shame 

Of branding with hot letters — 
Their shoulders from the cowhide's bloody strokes, 

Their necks from iron yokes ? 
To end or mitigate the ills of slavery, 
The Planter's avarice, the Driver's knavery ? 
To school the heathen negroes and enlighten 'em, 

To polish up and brighten 'em, 
And make them worthy of eternal bliss ? 
Why, no — the simple end and aim was this — 
Eeading a well-known proverb much amiss — 

To wash and whiten 'em ! 

They looked so ugly in their sable hides ; 

So dark, so dingy, like a grubby lot 
Of sooty sweeps, or colliers, and besides, 
However the poor elves 
Might wash themselves, 
Nobody knew if they were clean or not — 
On Nature's fairness they were quite a blot! 
Not to forget more serious complaints 
That even while they joined in pious hymn, 
So black they were and grim, 
In face and limb, 
They looked like Devils, though they sang like Saints ! 

The thing was undeniable ! 
They wanted washing ! not that slight ablution 
To which the skin of the white man is liable, 
Merely removing transient pollution — 
But good, hard, honest, energetic rubbing 
And scrubbing, 
Sousing each sooty frame from heels to head 
With stiff, strong saponaceous lather 
And pails of water — hottish rather, 
But not so boiling as to turn 'em red ! 



A BLACK JOB. ^5 

So spake the philanthropic man 

Who laid and hatched and nursed the plan — 

And oh ! to view its glorious consummation ! 
The brooms and mops, 
The tubs and slops, 

The baths and brushes in full operation I 
To see each Crow, or Jim, or John, 
Go in a raven and come out a swan ! 
While fair as Cavendishes, Vanes, and Russels, 
Black Venus rises from the soapy surge, 
And all the little Niggerlings emerge 

As lily-white as mussels. 
Sweet was the vision — but alas ! 

However in prospectus bright and sunny, 
To bring such visionary scenes to pass 

One thing was requisite, and that was — money I 
Money, that pays the laundress and her bills, 
For socks, and collars, shirts, and frills, 
Cravats and kerchiefs — money, without which 
The negroes must remain as dark as pitch ; 

A thing to make all Christians sad and shivery, 
To think of millions of immortal souls 
Dwelling in bodies black as coals, 

And living — so to speak — in Satan's livery ! 

Money — the root of evil — dross and stuff! 

But oh ! how happy ought the rich to feel, 
Whose means enabled them to give enough 

To blanch an African from head to heel ! 
How blessed — yea, thrice blessed — to subscribe 

Enough to scour a tribe ! 
While he whose fortune was at best a brittle one, 
Although he gave but pence, how sweet to know 
He helped to bleach a Hottentot's great toe, 
Or little one ! 



76 PLA T-DA Y P OEMS. 

Moved by this logic, or appalled, 

To persons of a certain turn so proper, 
The money came when called, 
In silver, gold, and copper, 

Presents from "friends to blacks," or foes to whites, 
"Trifles," and "offerings," and "widow's mites," 
Plump legacies, and yearly benefactions, 

With other gifts 

And charitable lifts, 
Printed in lists and quarterly transactions. 
As thus — Elisha Brettel, 

An iron kettle. 

The Dowager Lady Scannel, 

A piece of flannel. 

Eebecca Pope, 

A bar of soap. 

The Misses Howels, 

Half-a-dozen towels. 

The Master Rushes, 

Two scrubbing-brushes. 

Mr. T. Groom, 

A stable broom. 

And Mrs. Grubb, 

A tub. 

Great were the sums collected I 

And great results in consequence expected. 

But somehow, in the teeth of all endeavor, 

According to reports 

At yearly courts, 
The blacks, confound them ! were as black as ever ! 

Yes ! spite of all the water soused aloft, 
Soap, plain and mottled, hard and soft, 
Soda and pearlash, huckaback and sand, 
Brooms, brushes, palm of hand, 



A BLACK JOB. 77 

And scourers in the office strong and clever, 
In spite of all the tubbing, rubbing, scrubbing, 
The routing and the grubbing, 

t The blacks, confound them ! were as black as ever I 

In fact, in his perennial speech, 
The chairman owned the niggers did not bleach, 
As he had hoped, 
From being washed and soaped, 
A circumstance he named with grief and pity ; 
But still he had the happiness to say, 
For self and the Committee, 
By persevering in the present way, 
And scrubbing at the Blacks from day to day, 
Although he could not promise perfect white, 
From certain symptoms that had come to light, 
He hoped in time to get them gray I 

Lulled by this vague assurance, 

The friends and patrons of the sable tribe 

Continued to subscribe, 
And waited, waited on with much endurance — 
Many a frugal sister, thrifty daughter — 
Many a stinted widow, pinching mother — 
With income by the tax made somewhat shorter, 
Still paid implicitly her crown per quarter — 
Only to hear, as every year came round, 
That Mr. Treasurer had spent her pound; 
And as she loved her sable brother, 
That Mr. Treasurer must have another ! 

But, spite of pounds or guineas, 

Instead of giving any hint 

Or turning to a neutral tint, 
The plaguy negroes and their piccaninnies 



7 8 PLA Y-DA Y P OEMb. 

Were still the color of the bird that caws — 

Only some very aged souls 
Showing a little gray upon their polls, 

Like daws! 

However, nothing dashed 

By such repeated failures, or abashed, 

The Court still met ; the Chairman and Directors, 
The Secretary, good at pen and ink, 
The worthy Treasurer, who kept the chink, 
And all the cash Collectors ; 

With hundreds of that class, so kindly credulous, 
Without whose help no charlatan alive, 
Or bubble Company could hope to thrive, 

Or busy Chevalier, however sedulous — 

Those good and easy innocents in fact, 
Who willingly receiving chaff for corn, 

As pointed out by Butler's tact> 

Still find a secret pleasure in the act 
Of being pluck'd and shorn I 

However, in long hundreds, there they were, 
Thronging the hot, and close, and dusty court, 
To hear once more addresses from the Chair, 

And Eegular Eeport. 
Alas ! concluding in the usual strain, 

That what with everlasting wear and tear, 
The scrubbing-brushes had n't got a hair — 
The brooms — mere stumps — would never serve again— 
The soap was gone, the flannels all in shreds, 

The towels worn to threads, 
The tubs and pails too shattered to be mended — 
And what was added with a deal of pain, 
But as accounts correctly would explain, 
Though thirty thousand pounds had been expended — 
The Blackamoors had still been washed in vain I 



THE MYSTERY OF GTLQAL. 79 

" In fact the negroes were as black as ink, 
Yet, still as the Committee dared to think, 
And hoped the proposition was not rash, 
A rather free expenditure of cash — " 
But ere the prospect could be made more sunny — 
Up jumped a little, lemon-colored man, 
And with an eager stammer, thus began, 
In angry earnest, though it sounded funny : 
" What ! More subscriptions ! No — no — no, — not I ! 
You have had time — time — time enough to try ! 
They won't come white ! then why — why — why — why 
— why, 
More money?" 

" Why ! " said the Chairman, with an accent bland, 

And gentle waving of his dexter hand, 
" Why must we have more dross, and dirt and dust, 
More filthy lucre, in a word more gold, 
The why, sir, very easily is told, 
Because Humanity declares we must ! 
We 've scrubbed the Negroes till we 've nearly killed 'em, 
And finding that we cannot wash them white, 
But still their nigritude offends the sight, 
We mean to gild 'eml u 

Thomas Hood. 



Cjje JHgsterg at (gtlgai. 

The darkest, strangest mystery 
I ever read, or heern or see, 
Is 'long of a drink at Taggart's hall, — 
Tom Taggart's of Grilgal. 

I 've heern the tale a thousand ways, 
But never could git through the maze 
That hangs around that queer day's doin's 
But I '11 tell the yarn to youans. 



80 PLA Y-DA Y POEMS. 

Tom Taggart stood behind his bar, 
The time was fall, the skies was far, 
The neighbors round the counter drawed, 
And ca'mly drinked and jawed. 

At last came Colonel Blood of Pike 
And old Jedge Phinn, permiscus like, 
And each, as he meandered in, 
Remarked, " A whisky-skin." 

Tom mixed the beverage full and far, 
And slammed it smoking on the bar, 
Some says three fingers, some says two, — 
I '11 leave the choice to you. 

Phinn to the drink put forth his hand; 
Blood drawed his knife, with accent bland, 
" I ax yer parding, Mister Phinn — 
Jest drap that whisky-skin." 

No man high-toneder could be found 
Than old Jedge Phinn the country round, 
Says he, " Young man, the tribe of Phinns 
Knows their own whisky-skins I " 

He went for his 'leven inch bowie-knife : 
" I tries to f oiler a Christian life ; 
But I 'U drap a slice of liver or two, 
My bloomin' shrub, with you." 

They carved in a way that all admired, 
Tell Blood drawed iron at last, and fired. 
It took Seth Bludso 'twixt the eyes, 
Which caused him great surprise. 

Then coats went off", and all went in ; 
Shots and bad language swelled the din ; 



THE PILGRIMS AND THE PEAS. 81 

The short, sharp bark of Derringers, 
Like bull-pups, cheered the furse. 

They piled the stiffs outside the door ; 
They made, I reckon, a cord or more. 
Girls went that winter, as a rule, 
Alone to spellin' -school 

I 've sarched in vain from Dan to Beer- 
Sheba, to make this mystery clear ; 
But I end with hit as I did begin : 
Who got the whisky-skin ? 

John Hay. 

Cije ^flgrim* atrtr tfje ^eas. 

A brace of sinners, for no good, 

Were ordered to the Virgin Mary's shrine, 

Who at Loretto dwelt, in wax, stone, wood, 
And in a fair white wig looked wondrous fine. 

Fifty long miles had those sad rogues to travel, 

With something in their shoes much worse than gravel : 

In short, their toes so gentle to amuse, 

The priest had ordered peas into their shoes : 

A nostrum famous in old Popish times 
For purifying souls that stunk of crimes : 

A sort of apostolic salt, 

Which Popish parsons for its powers exalt, 
For keeping souls of sinners sweet, 
Just as our kitchen salt keeps meat. 

The knaves set off on the same day, 
Peas in their shoes, to go and pray : 
But very different was their speed, I wot : 



82 FLA Y-DA Y POEMS. 

One of the sinners galloped on, 
Swift as a bullet from a gun ; 

The other limped as if he had been shot. 

One saw the Virgin soon — -peccavi cried — 
Had his soul white-washed all so clever ; 

Then home again he nimbly hied, 
Made fit with saints above to live forever. 

In coming back, however, let me say, 

He met his brother rogue about half way — 

Hobbling, with out-stretched hands and bending knees ; 

Damning the souls and bodies of the peas ; 

His eyes in tears, his cheeks and brow in sweat, 

Deep sympathizing with his groaning feet. 

" How now," the light-toed, white-washed pilgrim broke 

" You lazy lubber ! " 
" Ods curse it," cried the other, " 't is no joke — 
My feet, once hard as any rock, 

Are now as soft as any blubber. 

" Excuse me, Virgin Mary, that I swear — 
As for Loretto I shall not get there ; 
No ! to the Devil my sinful soul must go, 
For damme if I ha' n't lost ev'ry toe. 

" But, brother sinner, pray explain 
How 't is that you are not in pain : 

What power hath worked a wonder for your toes : 
While /just like a snake am crawling, 
Now swearing, now on saints devoutly bawling, 
While not a rascal comes to ease my woes ? 

" How is 't that you can l'ke a greyhound go, 

Merry, as if that naught had happened, burn ye ? " 



SPRING. 83 

"Why," cried the other, grinning, "you must know, 
That just before I ventured on my journey, 
To walk a little more at ease, 
I took the liberty to boil my peas." 

John Wolcot. 

Cj)e Nose, 

How very odd that poets should suppose 
There is no poetry about the nose, 
When plain as is man's nose upon his face, 
A noseless face would lack poetic grace ; 

Noses have sympathy, a lover knows, 
Noses are always touched when lips are kissing — 
And who would care to kiss if nose was missing ? 

Why, what would be the fragrance of a rose — 
And where would be the mortal means of telling 

Whether a vile or wholesome odor flows 
Around us, if we owned no sense of smelling ? 

I know a nose — a nose no other knows — 

'Neath starry eyes, o'er ruby lips it grows — 
There 's beauty in its form, and music in its blows ! 

Anonymous. 



Spring. 

11 Come, gentle Spring ! ethereal mildness, come I " 
Thomson, void of rhyme as well as reason, 
How couldst thou thus poor human nature hum ? 
There 's no such season. 

The Spring I I shrink and shudder at her name ! 

For why, I find her breath a bitter blighter 1 
And suffer from her blows as if they came 

From Spring the Fighter. 



84 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Her praises, then, let hardy poets sing, 

And be her tuneful laureates and upholders, 

Who do not feel as if they had a Spring 
Poured down their shoulders I 

Let others eulogize her floral shows ; 

From me they cannot win a single stanza, 
I know her blooms are in full blow — and so 's 

The Influenza. 

Her cowslips, stocks, and lilies of the vale, 

Her honey blossoms that you hear the bees at, 

Her pansies, daffodils, and primrose pale, 
Are things I sneeze at I 

Fair is the vernal quarter of the year ! 

And fair its early buddings and its blowings — 
But just suppose Consumption's seeds appear 

With other sowings ! 

For me, I find, when eastern winds are high, 

A frigid, not a genial inspiration ; 
Nor can, like Iron-Chested Chubb, defy 

An inflammation. 

Smitten by breezes from the land of plague, 
To me all vernal luxuries are fables, 

1 where 's the Spring in a rheumatic leg, 
Stiff as a table's ? 

1 limp in agony — I wheeze and cough ; 

And quake with Ague, that great Agitator ; 
Nor dream, before July, of leaving off 
My Respirator. 

What wonder if in May itself I lack 

A peg for laudatory verse to hang on ? — 



SPRING. 85 

Spring, mild and gentle ? — yes, a Spring-heeled Jack 
To those he sprang on. 

In short, whatever panegyrics lie 

In fulsome odes too many to be cited, 
The tenderness of Spring is all my eye, 

And that is blighted I 

Thomas Hood. 

Spring. 

Once git a smell o' musk into a draw, 

An' it clings hold like precerdents in law : 

Your gra'ma'am put it there, — when, goodness knows, — 

To jes' this-worldify her Sunday-clo'es ; 

But the old chist wun't sarve her gran'son's wife, 

(For 'thout new funnitoor, wut good in life ?) 

An' so ole clawfoot, from the precinks dread 

0' the spare chamber, slinks into the shed, 

Where, dim with dust, it fust or last subsides 

To holdin' seeds an' fifty things besides ; 

But better days stick fast in heart an' husk, 

An' all you keep in 't gits a scent o' musk. 

Jes' so with poets : wut they 've airly read 
Grits kind o' worked into their heart an' head, 
So 's 't they can't seem to write but jest on sheers 
With furrin countries or played-out ideers, 
Nor hev a feelin', ef it doos n't smack 
0' wut some critter chose to feel 'way back : 
This makes 'em talk o' daisies, larks, an' things, 
Ez though we 'd nothin' here that blows an' sings, — 
(Why, I 'd give more for one live bobolink 
Than a square mile o' larks in printer's ink,)- 
This makes 'em think our fust o' May is May, 
Which 't ain't, for all the almanicks can say. 
8 



86 PZAT-D AT POEMS. 

little city-gals, don't never go it 
Blind on the word o' noospaper or poet ! 
They 're apt to puff, an' May-day seldom looks 
Up in the country ez it doos in books ; 

They 're no more like than hornets' -nest an' hives, 
Or printed sarmons be to holy lives. 
I, with my trouses perched on cowhide boots, 
Tuggin my foundered feet out by the roots, 
Hev seen ye come to fling on April's hearse 
Your muslin nosegay from the milliner's, 
Puzzlin' to find dry ground your queen to choose, 
An' dance your throats sore in morocker shoes : 

1 've seen ye an' felt proud, thet, come wut would, 
Our Pilgrim stock wuz pithed with hardihood. 
Pleasure does make us Yankees kind o' winch, 

Ez though 't wuz sunthin' paid for by the inch ; 
But yit we do contrive to worry thru, 
Ef Dooty tells us thet the thing 's to du, 
An' kerry a hollerday, ef we set out, 
Ez stiddily ez though 't wuz a redoubt. 

I, country-born an' bred, know where to find 
Some blooms thet make the season suit the mind, 
An' seem to metch the doubtin' blue-bird's notes, — 
Half-vent'rin' liverworts in furry coats, 
Bloodroots, whose rolled-up leaves ef you oncurl, 
Each on 'em 's cradle to a baby-pearl, — 
But these are jes' Spring's pickets ; sure ez sin, 
The rebble frosts '11 try to drive 'em in ; 
For half our May 's so awfully like May n't, 
'T would rile a Shaker or an evrige saint ; 
Though I own up I like our back'ard springs 
Thet kind o' haggle with their greens an' things, 
An' when you 'most give up, 'ithout more words 
Toss the fields full o' blossoms, leaves, an' birds : 
Thet 's Northun natur', slow an' apt to doubt, 
But when it doos git stirred, ther' 's no gin-out ! 



SPRING. 87 

Fust come the blackbirds clatt'rin' in tall trees, 
An' settlin' things in windy Congresses, — 
Queer politicians, though, for I '11 be skinned 
Ef all on 'em don't head against the wind. 
'Fore long the trees begin to show belief, — 
The maple crimsons to a coral-reef, 
Then saffern swarms swing off from all the willers 
So plump they look like yaller caterpillars, 
Then gray hoss-ches'nuts leetle hands unfold 
Softer 'n a baby's be at three days old : 
Thet 's robin-redbreast's almanick ; he knows 
Thet arter this ther' 's only blossom-snows ; 
So choosin' out a handy crotch and spouse, 
He goes to plast'rin' his adobe house. 



Then seems to come a hitch, — things lag behind, 
Till some fine mornin' Spring makes up her mind, 
An' ez, when snow-swelled rivers cresh their dams 
Heaped-up with ice thet dovetails in an' jams, 
A leak comes spirtin' thru some pin-hole cleft, 
Grows stronger, fercer, tears out right an' left, 
Then all the waters bow themselves an' come, 
Suddin', in one gret slope o' shedderin' foam, — 
Jes' so our spring gits everythin' in tune 
An' gives one leap from April into June : 
Then all comes crowdin' in ; afore you think, 
Young oak-leaves mist the side-hill woods with pink ; 
The catbird in the lay lock-bush is loud: 
The orchards turn to heaps o' rosy cloud ; 
Red-cedars blossom tu, though few folks know it> 
An' look all dipt in sunshine like a poet ; 
The lime-trees pile their solid stacks o' shade 
An' drows'ly simmer with the bees' sweet trade; 
In ellum-shrouds the nashin' hangbird clings 
An' for the summer ^Yg& his hammock slings; 



88 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

All down the loose-walled lanes in archin' bowers 
The barb'ry droops its strings o' golden flowers, 
Whose shrinkin' hearts the school-gals love to try 
With pins, — they '11 worry yourn so, boys, bimeby ! 
But I don't love your cat'logue style, — do you ? — 
Ez ef to sell off Natur' by vendoo ; 
One word with blood in 't 's twice ez good ez two; 
'Nuff sed, June's bridesman, poet o' the year, 
Gladness on wings, the bobolink, is here ; 
Half-hid in tip-top apple-blooms he swings, 
Or climbs aginst the breeze with quiverin' wings, 
Or, givin' way to 't in a mock despair, 
Euns down a brook o' laughter, thru the air. 

James Russell Lowell. 

Cije Nantucftet i&tpper. 

Many a long, long year ago, 

Nantucket skippers had a plan 
Of finding out, though "lying low," 

How near New York their schooners ran. 

They greased the lead before it fell, 

And then by sounding through the night, 

Knowing the soil that stuck so well, 

They always guessed their reckoning right. 

A skipper gray, whose eyes were dim, 
Could tell, by tasting, just the spot, 

And so below he 'd " douse the glim," — 
After, of course, his "something hot." 

Snug in his berth at eight o'clock, 
This ancient skipper might be found ; 

No matter how his craft would rock, 
He slept, — for skippers' naps are sound. 



A CHINESE STORY. 89 

The watch on deck would now and then 
Run down and wake him, with the lead ; 

He 'd up, and taste, and tell the men 
How many miles they went ahead. 

One night 't was Jotham Marden's watch, 

A curious wag — the pedlar's son ; 
And so he mused, (the wanton wretch !) 
" To-night I '11 have a grain of fun. 

" We 're all a set of stupid fools, 

To think the skipper knows, by tasting, 
What ground he 's on ; Nantucket schools 

Don't teach such stuff, with all their basting 1 " 

And so he took the well greased lead, 

And rubbed it o'er a box of earth 
That stood on deck, — a parsnip-bed, 

And then he sought the skipper's berth. 

" Where are we now, sir ? Please to taste." 
The skipper yawned, put out his tongue, 
And opened his eyes in wondrous haste, 
And then upon the floor he sprung ! 

The skipper stormed and tore his hair, 
Thrust on his boots and roared to Harden, 
" Nantucket 's sunk, and here we are 

Right over old Marm Hackett's garden ! " 

James T. Fields. 



None are so wise as they who make pretense 
To know what fate conceals from mortal sense. 



90 PLAT-DAY POEMS. 

This moral from a tale of Ho-hang-ho 
Might have been drawn a thousand years ago, 
When men were left to their unaided senses, 
Long ere the days of spectacles and lenses. 

Two young, short-sighted fellows, Chang and Ching, 
Over their chopsticks idly chattering, 

Fell to disputing which could see the best; 

At last they agreed to put it to the test. 
Said Chang, " A marble tablet, so I hear, 
Is placed upon the Bo-hee temple near, 
With an inscription on it. Let us go 
And read it (since you boast your optics so), 
Standing together at a certain place 
In front, where we the letters just may trace ; 
Then he who quickest reads the inscription there, 
The palm for keenest eyes henceforth shall bear." 
"Agreed," said Ching, " but let us try it soon: 
Suppose we say to-morrow afternoon." 

" Nay, not so soon," said Chang : "I'm bound to go 
To-morrow a day's ride from Ho-hang-ho, 
And sha' n't be ready till the following day : 
At ten a. m. on Thursday, let us say." 

So 't was arranged ; but Ching was wide awake : 
Time by the forelock he resolved to take ; 
And to the temple went at once and read 
Upon the tablet : " To the illustrious dead, 
The chief of mandarins, the great G-oh-Bang." 
Scarce had he gone when stealthily came Chang, 
Who read the same ; but peering closer, he 
Spied in a corner what Ching failed to see — 
The words, " This tablet is erected here 
By those to whom the great G-oh-Bang was dear." 



TEE WOMAN OF TEEEE COWS. 91 

So on the appointed day — both innocent 

As babes, of course — these honest fellows went, 

And took their distant station ; and Ching said, 

u I can read plainly, ' To the illustrious dead, 

The chief of mandarins, the great Groh-Bang.' " 

"And is that all that you can spell? " said Chang, 

" I see what you have read, but furthermore, 

In smaller letters, toward the temple door, 

Quite plain, ' This tablet is erected here 

By those to whom the great G-oh-Bang was dear.' " 

u My sharp-eyed friend, there are no such words ! " said 

Ching. 
"They 're there," said Chang, "if I see anything, 
As clear as daylight." " Patent eyes, indeed, 
You have ! " cried Ching ; " do you think I cannot read? " 
"Not at this distance as I can," Chang said, 
"If what you say you saw is all you read." 

In fine they quarreled, and their wrath increased, 
Till Chang said, "Let us leave it to the priest; 
Lo ! here he comes to meet us." " It is well," 
Said honest Ching ; " no falsehood he will tell." 

The good man heard their artless story through, 
And said, " I think, dear sirs, there must be few 
Blest with such wondrous eyes as those you wear : 
There 's no such tablet or inscription there ! 
There was one, it is true ; 't was moved away 
And placed within the temple yesterday." 

Christopher Pearse Cranch. 

C^e ffliomatt of Cfjree (Ectog. 

O Woman of Three Cows, agragh! don't let your tongue 
thus rattle ! 

don't be saucy, don't be stiff, because you may have cat- 
tle! 



92 PLAT-DAT POEMS. 

I 've seen — and here 's my hand to you, I only say what 's 

true — 
A many a one with twice your stock not half so proud as 

you. 

Good luck to you 1 don't scorn the poor, and don't be their 

despiser ; 
For worldly wealth soon melts away, and cheats the very 

miser ; 
And Death soon strips the proudest wreath from haughty 

human brows ; 
Then don't be stiff and don't be proud, good Woman of 

Three Cows ! 

See where Momonia's heroes lie, proud Owen More's de- 
scendants, — 

'T is they that won the glorious name, and had the grand 
attendants! 

If they were forced to bow to fate, as every mortal bows, 

Can you be proud, can you be stiff, my Woman of Three 
Cows? 

The brave sons of the Lord of Clare, they left the land to 
mourning ; 

Movrone ! for they were banished, with no hope of their re- 
turning. 

Who knows in what abodes of want those youths were 
driven to house ? 

Yet you can give yourself these airs, Woman of Three 
Cows! 

think of Donnell of the Ships, the chief whom nothing 

daunted, — 
See how he fell in distant Spain, unchronicled, unchanted ! 
He sleeps, the great O'Sullivan, where thunder cannot rouse ; 
Then ask yourself, should you be proud, good Woman of 

Three Cows? 






THE WOMAN OF THREE COWS. 93 

O'Ruark, Maguire, those souls of fire, whose names are 
shrined in story, — 

Think how their high achievements once made Erin's great- 
est glory I 

Yet now their bones He mouldering under weeds and cypress 
boughs, 

And so, for all your pride, will yours, Woman of Three 
Cows ! 

The O'Carrolls also, famed when fame was only for the bold- 
est, 

Rest in forgotten sepulchres with Erin's best and oldest ; 

Yet who so great as they of yore, in battle or carouse ? 

Just think of that, and hide your head, good Woman of 
Three Cows! 

Your neighbor 's poor, and you it seems are big with vain 
ideas, 

Because, forsooth, you 've got three cows, — one more, I see, 
than she has ; 

That tongue of yours wags more at times than charity al- 
lows, 

But if you 're strong be merciful, great Woman of Three 
Cows! 

Now, there you go ! You still, of course, keep up your 

scornful bearing, 
And I 'm too poor to hinder you ; but, by the cloak I 'm 

wearing, 
If I had but four cows myself, even though you were my 

spouse, 
I 'd thwack you well to cure your pride, my Woman of 

Three Cows! 

James Clarence Mangan 

8* 



94 PLA T-BA Y P OEMS. 

&Se dFclig of Proton, 

BY A GENERAL AGENT. 

I knew a boor — a clownish card, 

(His only friends were pigs and cows and 

The poultry of a small farm-yard) 

Who came into two hundred thousand. 

Good fortune worked no change in Brown, 
Though she 's a mighty social chymist: 

He was a clown — and by a clown 
I do not mean a pantomimist. 

It left him quiet, calm, and cool, 

Though hardly knowing what a crown was- 
You can't imagine what a fool 



He scouted all who wished to come 
And give him monetary schooling; 

And I propose to give you some 
Idea of his insensate fooling. 

I formed a company or two — 

(Of course I don't know what the rest meaL 
/formed them solely with a view 

To help him to a sound investment). 

Their objects were — their only cares — 
To justify their Boards in showing 

A handsome dividend on shares, 

And keep their good promoter going. 

But no — the lout prefers his brass, 
Though shares at par I freely proffer : 

Yes — will it be believed ? — the ass 

Declines, with thanks, my well meant offer ! 



TEE FOLLY OF BROWN. 95 

He added, with a bumpkin's grin, 

(A weakly intellect denoting) 
He 'd rather not invest it in 

A company of my promoting ! 

" You have two hundred ' thou ' or more," 
Said I. " You '11 waste it, lose it, lend it: 
Come, take my furnished second floor, 
I '11 gladly show you how to spend it" 

But will it be believed that he, 

With grin upon his face of poppy, 
Declined my aid, while thanking me 

For what he called my " philanthroppy ? ' 

Some blind, suspicious fools rejoice 

In doubting friends who would n't harm them, 
They will not hear the charmer's voice, 

However wisely he may charm them. 

I showed him that his coat, all dust, 

Top boots and cords provoked compassion, 

And proved that men of station must 
Conform to the decrees of fashion. 

I showed him where to buy his hat, 

To coat him, trouser him, and boot him ; 
But no — he would n't hear of that, 
" He did n't think the style would suit him I " 

I offered him a country-sea't, 

And made no end of an oration ; 
I made it certainly complete, 

And introduced the deputation. 

But no — the clown my prospects blights — 
(The worth of birth it surely teaches !) 



9 6 PL A Y-DA T P OEMS. 

u Why should I want to spend my nights 
In Parliament, a-making speeches ? 

" I have n't never been to school — 
I ain't had not no eddication — 
And I should surely be a fool 

To publish that to all the nation ! " 

I offered him a trotting horse — 
No hack had ever trotted faster — 

I also offered him, of course, 

A rare and curious " old Master." 

I offered to procure him weeds — 
Wines fit for one in his position — 

But, though an ass in all his deeds, 

He 'd learned the meaning of "commission." 

He called me " thief " the other day, 
And daily from his door he thrusts me ; 

Much more of this, and soon I may 

Begin to think that Brown mistrusts me. 

So deaf to all sound Reason's rule 

This poor uneducated clown is, 
You can not fancy what a fool 

Poor rich, uneducated Brown is. 

William S. Gilbert. 



She is talking aesthetics, the dear clever creature ! 

Upon Man, and his functions, she speaks with a smile, 
Her ideas are divine upon Art, upon Nature, 

The Sublime, the Heroic, and Mr. Carlyle. 






MIDGES 97 

I no more am found worthy to join in the talk, now ; 

So I follow with my surreptitious cigar ; 
While she leads our poetical friend up the walk, now. 

Who quotes Wordsworth and praises her " Thoughts on 
a Star." 

Meanwhile, there is dancing in yonder green bower 

A swarm of young midges ! They dance high and low. 

'T is a sweet little species that lives but one hour, 
And the eldest was born half an hour ago. 

One impulsive young midge I hear ardently pouring 

In the ear of a shy little wanton in gauze, 
His eternal devotion, his ceaseless adoring ; 

Which shall last till the Universe breaks from its laws. 

His passion is not, he declares, the mere fever 
Of a rapturous moment. It knows no control : 

It will burn in his breast through existence forever, 
Immutably fixed in the deeps of his soul ! 

She wavers ; she flutters : . . . male midges are fickle : 
Dare she trust him her future ? . . . she asks with a sigh : 

He implores . . . and a tear is beginning to trickle : 

She is weak : they embrace, and . . . the lovers pass by. 

While they pass me, down here on a rose-leaf has lighted 
A pale midge, his feelers all drooping and torn : 

His existence is withered ; its future is blighted : 
His hopes are betrayed : and his breast is forlorn. 

By the midge his heart trusted his heart is deceived, now, 
In the virtue of midges no more he believes : 

From love in its falsehood, once wildly believed, now, 
He will bury his desolate life in the leaves. 

His friends would console him . . . the noblest and sagest 
Of midges have held that a midge lives again. 
9 



98 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

In eternity, say they, the strife thou now wagest 

With sorrow, shall cease . . . but their words were in 
vain ! 

Can eternity bring back the seconds now wasted 
In hopeless desire ? or restore to his breast 

The belief he has lost, with the bliss he once tasted, 
Embracing the midge that his being held best ? 

His friends would console him . . . life yet is before him ; 

Many hundred long seconds he still has to live : 
In the state yet a mighty career spreads before him : 

Let him seek in the great world of action to strive ! 

There is Fame ! there 's Ambition ! and grander than either, 
There is Freedom! . . . the progress and march of the 
race! .... 

But to Freedom his breast beats no longer, and neither 
Ambition nor action her loss can replace. 

If the time had been spent in acquiring aesthetics 

I have squandered in learning this language of midges, 

There might, for my friend in her peripatetics, 

Have been now two asses to help o'er the bridges. 

As it is, ... I '11 report her the whole conversation. 

It would have been longer; but, some how or other, 
(In the midst of that misanthrope's long lamentation,) 

A midge in my right eye became a young mother. 

Since my friend is so clever, I '11 ask her to tell me 
Why the least living thing (a mere midge in the egg) 

Can make a man's tears flow, as now it befel me . 
you dear, clever woman, explain it I beg. 

Robert Bulwer Lttton. 



THE MOURNER A LA MODE. 99 

&i)e i^tournec a la JHotoe. 

I saw her last night at a party 

(The elegant party at Mead's), 
And looking remarkably hearty 

For a widow so young in her weeds ; 
Yet I know she was suffering sorrow 

Too deep for the tongue to express, — 
Or why had she chosen to borrow 

So much from the language of dress ? 

Her shawl was as sable as night ; 

And her gloves were as dark as her shawl ; 
And her jewels — that flashed in the light — 

Were black as a funeral pall ; 
Her robe had the hue of the rest, 

(How nicely it fitted her shape !) 
And the grief that was heaving her breast 

Boiled over in billows of crape ! 

What tears of vicarious woe, 

That else might have sullied her face, 
Were kindly permitted to flow 

In ripples of ebony lace ! 
While even her fan, in its play, 

Had quite a lugubrious scope, 
And seemed to be waving away 

The ghost of the angel of Hope ! 

Yet rich as the robes of a queen 

Was the sombre apparel she wore ; 
I 'm certain I never had seen 

Such a sumptuous sorrow before ; 
And I could n't help thinking the beauty, 

In mourning the loved and the lost, 
Was doing her conjugal duty 

Altogether regardless of cost! 



1 00 PLA YD A Y POEMS. 

One surely would say a devotion 

Performed at so vast an expense 
Betrayed an excess of emotion 

That was really something immense ; 
And yet as I viewed, at my leisure, 

Those tokens of tender regard, 
I thought : — It is scarce without measure— 

The sorrow that goes by the yard ! 

Ah ! grief is a curious passion ; 

And yours — I am sorely afraid 
The very next phase of the fashion 

Will find it beginning to fade ; 
Though dark are the shadows of grief, 

The morning will follow the night, 
Half-tints will betoken relief, 

Till joy shall be symboled in white ! 

Ah well ! it were idle to quarrel 

With Fashion, or aught she may do ; 
And so I conclude with a moral 

And metaphor — warranted new : — 
When measles come handsomely out, 

The patient is safest, they say ; 
And the Sorrow is mildest, no doubt, 

That works in a similar way ! 

John Godfrey Saxe. 

a logical story. 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay, 

That was built in such a logical way ? 

It ran a hundred years to a day, 

And then of a sudden, it — ah, but stay. 



THE ONE-HOSS SHA Y. 101 

I '11 tell you what happened without delay, 
Scaring the parson into fits, 
Frightening people out of their wits, — 
Have you ever heard of that, I say ? 

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five. 
Georgius Secundus was then alive, — 
Snuffy old drone from the German hive. 
That was the year when Lisbon-town 
Saw the earth open and gulp her down, 
And Braddock's army was done so brown, 
Left without a scalp to its crown. 
It was on the terrible Earthquake-day 
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay. 

Now in building of chaises, I tell you what, 
There is always somewhere a weakest spot, — 
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill, 
In panel, or crossbar, or floor, or sill, 
In screw, bolt, thoroughbrace, — lurking still, 
Find it somewhere you must and will, — 
Above or below, or within or without, — 
And that 's the reason, beyond a doubt, 
A chaise breaks down, but does n't wear out. 

But the Deacon swore, (as Deacons do, 
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou") 
He would build one shay to beat the taown 
'n' the keounty 'n' all the kentry raoun' ; 
It should be so built that it could rC break daowr 
— " Fur," said the Deacon, " 't 's mighty plain 
Thut the weakes' place mus' stan' the strain ; 
'n' the way t' fix it, uz I maintain, 

Is only jest 
To make that place uz strong uz the rest." 



102 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk 

Where he could find the strongest oak, 

That could n't be split nor bent nor broke, — 

That was for spokes and floor and sills ; 

He sent for lancewood to make the thills ; 

The crossbars were ash, from the straightest trees ; 

The panels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese, 

But lasts like iron for things like these ; 

The hubs of logs from the " Settler's ellum," — 

Last of its timber, — they could n't sell 'em, 

Never an axe had seen their chips, 

And the wedges flew from between their lips, 

Their blunt ends frizzled like celery tips ; 

Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw, 

Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too, 

Steel of the finest, bright and blue ; 

Thoroughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide ; 

Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide 

Found in the pit when the tanner died. 

That was the way he "put her through." — 

" There ! " said the Deacon, " naow she '11 dew ! " 

Do ! I tell you, I rather guess 

She was a wonder, and nothing less . 

Colts grew horses, beards turned gray, 

Deacon and deaconess dropped away, 

Children and grandchildren, — where were they ? 

But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay 

As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day ! 

Eighteen hundred ; — it came and found 
The Deacon's masterpiece strong and sound. 
Eighteen hundred increased by ten ; — 
" Hahnsum kerridge " they called it then. 
Eighteen hundred and twenty came ; — 
Running 1 as usual; much the same. 



THE ONE-HOSS SUA Y. 103 

Thirty and forty at last arrive, 
And then come fifty, and fifty-five. 

Little of all we value here 

Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year 

Without both feeling and looking queer. 

In fact, there 's nothing that keeps its youth, 

So far as I know, but a tree and truth. 

(This is a moral that runs at large ; 

Take it. — You 're welcome. — No extra charge.) 

First of November, — the Earthquake-day. — 
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay, 
A general flavor of mild decay, 
But nothing local as one may say. 
There could n't be, — for the Deacon's art 
Had made it so like in every part 
That there was n't a chance for one to start. 
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills, 
And the floor was just as strong as the sills, 
And the panels just as strong as the floor, 
And the whippletree neither less nor more, 
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore, 
And spring and axle and hub encore. 
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt 
In another hour it will be worn out! 

First of November, 'Fifty-five ! 
This morning the parson takes a drive. 
Now, small boys, get out of the way ! 
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay, 
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay. 
" Huddup ! " said the parson. — Off went they. 
The parson was working his Sunday's text, — 
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed 
At what the — Moses — was coming 1 next. 



1 04 PLA Y-DA T P OEMS. 

All at once the horse stood still, 

Close by the meet'n'-house on the hill. 

— First a shiver, and then a thrill, 

Then something decidedly like a spill, — 

And the parson was sitting upon a rock, 

At half-past nine by the meet'n'-house clock ! 

Just the hour of the earthquake shock! 

— What do you think the parson found, 

When he got up and stared around ? 

The poor old chaise in a heap or mound, 

As if it had been to the mill and ground ! 

You see, of course, if you 're not a dunce, 

How it went to pieces all at once, — 

All at once, and nothing first, — 

Just as bubbles do when they burst. 

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay. 
Logic is logic. That 's all I say. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

^lat'n Uanguage from Crutfjful fames. 

Table Mountain, 1870. 

Which I wish to remark — 

And my language is plain — 
That for ways that are dark, 

And for tricks that are vain, 
The heathen Chinee is peculiar, 

Which the same I would rise to explain. 

Ah Sin was his name ; 

And I shall not deny 
In regard to the same 

What that name might imply. 
But his smile it was pensive and childlike, 

As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye. 



PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES. 105 

It was August the third j 

And quite soft was the skies : 
Which it might be inferred 

That Ah Sin was likewise ; 
Yet he played it that day upon William 

And me in a way I despise. 

Which we had a small game, 

And Ah Sin took a hand : 
It was euchre. The same 

He did not understand ; 
But he smiled as he sat by the table, 

With the smile that was childlike and bland. 

Yet the cards they were stocked 

In a way that I grieve. 
And my feelings were shocked 

At the state of Nye's sleeve ; 
Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers, 
* And the same with intent to deceive. 

But the hands that were played 

By that heathen Chinee, 
And the points that he made, 

Were quite frightful to see — 
Till at last he put down a right bower, 

Which the same Nye had dealt unto me. 

Then I looked up at Nye, 

And he gazed upon me ; 
And he rose with a sigh, 

And said, "Can this be? 
We are ruined by Chinese cheap labor " — 

And he went for that heathen Chinee. 

In the scene that ensued 
I did not take a hand ; 
9* 



1 06 PLA T-DA Y P OEMS. 

But the floor it was strewed 

Like the leaves on the strand 
With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding, 

In the game "he did not understand." 

In his sleeves, which were long, 

He had twenty-four packs — 
Which was coming it strong, 

Yet I state but the facts ; 
And we found on his nails, which were taper, 

What is frequent in tapers — that 's wax. 

Which is why I remark, 

And my language is plain, 
That for ways that are dark, 

And for tricks that are vain, 
The heathen Chinee is peculiar — 

Which the same I am free to maintain. 

Beet Harte. 

Wfyt ©tbertmg Jgtetorj) of gjojjn (gtlpm. 

John Gilpin was a citizen 

Of credit and renown. 
A train-band captain eke was he 

Of famous London town. 

John Gilpin's spouse said to her dear, 
Though wedded we have been 

These twice ten tedious years, yet we 
No holiday have seen. 

To-morrow is our wedding-day, 

And we will then repair 
Unto the Bell at Edmonton. 

All in a chaise and pair. 



THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 107 

My sister, and my sister's child, 

Myself and children three, 
Will fill the chaise; so you must ride 

On horseback after we. 

He soon replied, I do admire 

Of womankind but one, 
And you are she, my dearest dear, 

Therefore it shall be done. 

I am a linen-draper bold, 

As all the world doth know, 
And my good friend, the calender, 

Will lend his horse to go. 

Quoth Mrs. Gilpin, That 's well said ; 

And for that wine is dear, 
We will be furnished with our own, 

Which is both bright and clear. 

John Gilpin kissed his loving wife ; 

O'erjoyed was he to find, 
That though on pleasure she was bent, 

She had a frugal mind. 

The morning came, the chaise was brought, 

But yet was not allowed 
To drive up to the door, lest all 

Should say that she was proud. 

So three doors off the chaise was stayed 

Where they did all get in ; 
Six precious souls, and all agog 

Do dash through thick and thin. 

Smack went the whip, round went the wheels, 
Were never folks so glad, 



108 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

The stones did rattle underneath, 
As if Cheapside were mad. 

John Grilpin at his horse's side 
Seized fast the flowing mane, 

And up he got, in haste to ride, 
But soon came down again ; 

For saddle-tree scarce reached had he, 

His journey to begin, 
When turning round, his head he saw 

Three customers come in. 

So down he came ; for loss of time, 
Although it grieved him sore ; 

Yet loss of pence, full well he knew, 
Would trouble him much more. 

'T was long before the customers 

Were suited to their mind, 
When Betty screaming came down stair 
' The wine is left behind ! ' 

Good lack ! quoth he — yet bring it me, 
My leathern belt likewise, 

In which I bear my trusty sword, 
When I do exercise. 

Now mistress Grilpin (careful soul !) 
Had two stone bottles found, 

To hold the liquor that she loved, 
And keep it safe and sound. 

Each bottle had a curling ear, 
Through which the belt he drew, 

And hung a bottle on each side, 
To make his balance true. 






THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 109 

Then over all, that he might he 

Equipp'd from top to toe, 
His long red cloak, well brush' d and neat, 

He manfully did throw. 

Now see him mounted once again 

Upon his nimble steed, 
Full slowly pacing o'er the stones, 

With caution and good heed. 

But finding soon a smoother road 

Beneath his well-shod feet, 
The snorting beast began to trot, 

Which gall'd him in his seat. 

So, fair and softly, John he cried, 

But John he cried in vain ; 
That trot became a gallop soon, 

In spite of curb and rein. 

So stooping down, as needs he must 

Who cannot sit upright, 
He grasp' d the mane with both his hands, 

And eke with all his might. 

His horse, who never in that sort 

Had handled been before, 
What thing upon his back had got 

Did wonder more and more. 

Away went Gilpin, neck or nought; 

Away went hat and wig ; 
He little dreamt, when he set out, 

Of running such a rig. 

The wind did blow, the cloak did fly, 
Like streamer long and gay, 
10 



HO PL A Y-BAY P OEMS. 

Till, loop and button failing both, 
At last it flew away. 

Then might all people well discern 

The bottles he had slung ; 
A bottle swinging at each side, 

As hath been said or sung. 

The dogs did bark, the children scream'd, 

Up flew the windows all ; 
And every soul cried out, Well done ! 

As loud as he could bawl. 

Away went Gilpin — who but he ? 

His fame soon spread around, 
He carries weight ! he rides a race ! 

'T is for a thousand pound ! 

And still, as fast as he drew near, 
'T was wonderful to view, 

How in a trice the turnpike men 
Their gates wide open threw. 

And now, as he went bowing down 
His reeking head full low. 

The bottles twain behind his back 
Were shatter'd at a blow. 

Down ran the wine into the road, 

Most piteous to be seen, 
Which made his horse's flanks to smoke 

As they had basted been. 

But still he seem'd to carry weight, 
With leathern girdle braced ; 

For all might see the bottle-necks 
Still dangling at his waist 



THE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. \\\ 

Thus all through merry Islington 

These gambols he did play, 
Until he came unto the Wash 

Of Edmonton so gay ; 

And there he threw the wash about 

On both sides of the way, 
Just like unto a trundling mop, 

Or a wild goose at play. 

At Edmonton his loving wife 

From the balcony spied 
Her tender husband, wondering much 

To see how he did ride. 

Stop, stop, John G-ilpin ! — Here 's the house — 

They all at once did cry ; 
The dinner waits, and we are tired ; 

Said Gilpin — So am I ! 

But yet his horse was not a whit 

Inclined to tarry there ! 
For why ? — his owner had a house 

Full ten miles off, at Ware. 

So like an arrow swift he flew, 

Shot by an archer strong ; 
So did he fly — which brings me to 

The middle of my song. 

Away went G-ilpin out of breath, 

And sore against his will, 
Till at his friend the calender's 

His horse at last stood still. 

The calender, amazed to see 
His neighbor in such trim, 



112 PL A Y-DAY P OEMS. 

Laid down his pipe, flew to the gate, 
And thus accosted him : 

What news ? what news ? your tidings tell ; 

Tell me you must and shall — 
Say why bareheaded you are come, 

Or why you come at all ? 

Now Grilpin had a pleasant wit> 

And loved a timely joke ; 
And thus unto the calender 

In merry guise he spoke : 

I came because your horse would come, 

And, if I well forbode, 
My hat and wig will soon be here, 

They are upon the road. 

The calender, right glad to find 

His friend in merry pin, 
Eeturn'd him not a single word, 

But to the house went in ; 

Whence straight he came with hat and wig ; 

A wig that flow'd behind, 
A hat not much the worse for wear, 

Each comely in its kind. 

He held them up, and in his turn 

Thus shew'd his ready wit, 
My head is twice as big as yours, 

They therefore needs must fit. 

But let me scrape the dirt away, 

That hangs upon your face ; 
And stop and eat, for well you may 

Be in a hungry case. 



TEE DIVERTING HISTORY OF JOHN GILPIN. 113 

Said John, It is my wedding-day, 

And all the world would stare, 
If wife should dine at Edmonton, 

And I should dine at Ware. 

So turning to his horse, he said, 

I am in haste to dine ; 
'T was for your pleasure you came here, 

You shall go back for mine. 

Ah luckless speech, and bootless boast ! 

For which he paid full dear ; 
For, while he spake, a braying ass 

Did sing most loud and clear ; 

Whereat his horse did snort, as he 

Had heard a lion roar, 
And gallop'd off with all his might, 

As he had done before. 

Away went Grilpin, and away 

•Went Gilpin's hat and wig : 
He lost them sooner than at first, 

For why ? — they were too big. 

Now mistress Grilpin, when she saw 

Her husband posting down 
Into the country far away, 

She pull'd out half-a-crown ; 

And thus unto the youth she said 

That drove them to the Bell, 
This shall be yours, when you bring back 

My husband safe and well. 

The youth did ride, and soon did meet 
John coming back amain ; 



114 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Whom in a trice he tried to stop, 
By catching at his rein ; 

But not performing what he meant, 
And gladly would have done, 

The frighted steed he frighted more, 
And made him faster run. 

AAvay went Gilpin, and away 

Went postboy at his heels, 
The postboy's horse right glad to miss 

The lumbering of the wheels. 

Six gentlemen upon the road, 

Thus seeing Gilpin fly, 
With postboy scampering in the rear, 

They raised the hue and cry : 

Stop thief! stop thief! — a highwayman! 

Not one of them was mute ; 
And all and each that pass'd that way 

Did join in the pursuit. 

And now the turnpike gates again 

Flew open in short space ; 
The toll-man thinking as before, 

That Gilpin rode a race. 

And so he did, and won it too, 

For he got first to town : 
Nor stopp'cl till where he had got up 

He did again get down. 

Xow let us sing, Long live the king, 

And Gilpin long live he ; 
And when he next doth ride abroad, 

May I be there to see ! 

William Cowtkr. 



THE AM A TEUR ORLAND 0. 115 

Ct)e Amateur (©rlanfoo. 

It was an Amateur Dram. Ass., 

(Kind reader, although your 
Knowledge of French is not first-class, 

Don't call that Amature.) 
It was an Amateur Dram. Ass., 

The which did warfare wage 
On the dramatic works of this 

And every other age. 

It had a walking gentleman, 

A leading juvenile, 
First lady in book-muslin dressed, 

With a galvanic smile ; 
Thereto a singing chambermaid, 

Benignant heavy pa, 
And oh, heavier still was the heavy vill- 

Ain, with his fierce "Ha! Ha! " 

There was n't an author from Shakespeare down — 

Or up — to Boucicault, 
These amateurs were n't competent 

(S. Wegg) to collar and throw. 
And when the winter time came round — 
" Season " 's a stagier phrase — 
The Am. Dram. Ass. assaulted one 

Of the Bard of Avon's plays. 

'T was " As You Like It " that they chose ; 

For the leading lady's heart 
Was set on playing Rosalind, 

Or some other page's part. 
And the President of the Am. Dram. Ays., 

A stalwart dry-goods clerk, 
Was cast for Orlando, in which role 

He felt he 'd make his mark. 



116 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

" I mind me," said the President, 
(All thoughtful was his face,) 
" When Orlando was taken by Thingummy 
That Charles was played by Mace. 
Charles hath not many lines to speak, 

Nay, not a single length — 
Oh, if find we can a Mussulman 

(That is, a man of strength), 
And bring him on the stage as Charles — 
But alas, it can't be did — " 
"It can," replied the Treasurer; 
" Let 's get The Hunky Kid." 

This Hunky Kid of whom they spoke, 

Belonged to the P. R. ; 
He always had his hair cut short, 

And always had catarrh. 
His voice was gruff, his language rough, 

His forehead villainous low, 
And 'neath his broken nose a vast 

Expanse of jaw did show. 
He was forty-eight about the chest, 

And his fore-arm at the mid- 
Die measured twenty-one and a half — 

Such was The Hunky Kid ! 

The Am. Dram. Ass., they have engaged 

This pet of the P. R. ; 
As Charles the Wrestler he 's to be 

A bright particular star. 
And when they put the programme out, 

Announce him thus they did : 
Orlando .... Mr. Romeo Jones ; 

Charles .... Mr. T. H. Kid. 

The night has come ; the house is packed, 
From pit to gallery, 



THE AMATEUR ORLANDO. 11 7 

As those who through the curtain peep 

Quake inwardly to see. 
A squeak 's heard in the orchestra, 

As the leader draws across 
Th' intestines of the agile cat 

The tail of the noble hoss. 

All is at sea behind the scenes, 

Why do they fear and funk ? 
Alas, alas, The Hunky Kid 

Is lamentably drunk ! 
He 's in that most unlovely stage 

Of half-intoxication 
When men resent the hint they 're tight 

As a personal imputation ! 

; Ring up! ring up ! " Orlando cried, 
" Or we must cut the scene; 
For Charles the Wrestler is imbued 

With poisonous benzine ; 
And every moment gets more drunk 

Than he before has been." 



The wrestling scene has come and Charles 

Is much disguised in drink ; 
The stage to him 's an inclined plane, 

The footlights make him blink. 
Still strives he to act well his part 

Where all the honor lies, 
Though Shakespeare would not in his lines 

His language recognize. 
Instead of " Come, where is this young — ? ' 

This man of bone and brawn, 
He squares himself and bellows : " Time ! 

Fetch your Orlandos on ! " 
10* 



118 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

" Now, Hercules be thy speed, young man,' 

Fair Rosalind said she, 
As the two wrestlers in the ring 

Grapple right furiously ; 
But Charles the Wrestler had no sense 

Of dramatic propriety. 

He siezed on Mr. Romeo Jones, 

In Graeco-Roman style; 
He got what they call a grapevine lock 

On that leading juvenile; 
He flung him into the orchestra, 

And the man with the ophicleide, 
On whom he fell, he just said — well, 

No matter what — and died ! 

When once the tiger has tasted blood 

And found that it is sweet, 
He has a habit of killing more 

Than he can possibly eat. 
And thus it was with The Hunky Kid ; 

In his homicidal blindness, 
He lifted his hand against Rosalind 

Not in the way of kindness, 
He chased poor Celia off at L., 

At R. U. E. Le Beau, 
And he put such a head upon Duke Fred, 

In fifteen seconds or so, 
That never one of the courtly train 

Might his haughty master know. 

And that 's precisely what came to pass, 

Because the luckless carles 
Belonging to the Am. Dram. Ass. 

Cast The Hunky Kid for Charles! 

George T. Lantgak. 



SALL Y SIMP KIN S'S LAMES T. \ \ 9 

a ^u??UtJ (tfensui^Cafcec. 

" Got any boys? " the Marshal said 
To a lady from over the Rhine ; 
And the lady shook her flaxen head. 
And civilly answered, " Nein ! " 

" Got any girls ? " the Marshal said 
To the lady from over the Rhine ; 
And again the lady shook her head, 
And civilly answered, " Nein I " 

"But some are dead? " the Marshal said 
To the lady from over the Rhine ; 
And again the lady shook her head, 
And civilly answered, " Nein I " 

" Husband of course ? " the Marshal said 
To the lady from over the Rhine ; 
And again she shook her flaxen head, 
And civilly answered, " Nein I " 

" The devil you have! " the Marshal said 
To the lady from over the Rhine; 
And again she shook her flaxen head, 
And civilly answered, " Nein ! " 

" Now what do you mean by shaking your head, 
And always answering, ' Nein ' ? " 

" Ich kann nicht Englisch ! " civilly said 
The lady from over the Rhine. 

John Godfrey Saxe. 

ifcallj) jfchnpfcms'g Uamem. 



linor in. 



" what is that comes glidi 

And quite in middling haste ? 



120 PL A Y-DA T P OEMS. 

It is the picture of my Jones, 
And painted to the waist. 

" It is not painted to the life, 

For where 's the trousers blue ? 
Jones, my dear ! — dear ! my Jones, 
What is become of you ? " 

" Sally dear, it is too true, — 
The half that you remark 
Is come to say my other half 
Is bit off by a shark ! 

" Sally, sharks do things by halves, 
Yet most completely do ! 
A bite in one place seems enough, 
But I 've been bit in two. 

" You know I once was all your own, 
But now a shark must share ! 
But let that pass, — for now to you 
I 'm neither here nor there. 

" Alas ! death has a strange divorce 
Effected in the sea : 
It has divided me from you, 
And even me from me ! 

" Don't fear my ghost will walk o' nights 
To haunt, as people say ; 
My ghost can't walk, for 0, my legs 
Are many leagues away ! 



And looking where the boat is, 
A shark just snaps away a half 
Without ' a quarter's notice.' 



THE BIR TH OF SAINT PA TRICK \ 2 J 

" One half is here, the other half 
Is near Columbia placed ; 
Sally, I have got the whole 
Atlantic for my waist. 

" But now, adieu, — a long adieu ! 
I 've solved death's awful riddle, 
And would say more, but I am doomed 
To break off in the middle ! " 

Thomas Hood. 



Cfje ^irtf) of Saint latricfe. 

On the eighth day of March it was, some people say, 
That Saint Pathrick at midnight he first saw the day; 
While others declare 't was the ninth he was born. 
And 't was all a mistake between midnight and morn ; 
For mistakes will occur in a hurry and shock, 
And some blam'd the baby — and some blam'd the clock — 
'Till with all their cross-questions sure no one could know, 
If the child was too fast — or the clock was too slow. 

Now the first faction fight in owld Ireland, they say, • 
Was all on account of Saint Pathrick's birthday, 
Some fought for the eighth — for the ninth more would die, 
And who would n't see right, sure they blacken'd his eye ! 
At last, both the factions so positive grew, 
That each kept a birthday, so Pat then had two, 
Till Father Mulcahy, who showed them their sins, 
Said, " No one could have two birthdays, but a twins." 

Says he, " Boys, don't be fightin' for eight or for nine, 
Don't be always dividin' — but sometimes combine ; 
Combine eight with nine, and seventeen is the mark, 
So let that be his birthday." — " Amen," says the clerk. 



122 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

" If ho was n't a twins, sure our hist'ry will show — 
That, at least, he 's worth any two saints that we know ! " 
Then they all got blind dhrunk — which complated their bliss, 
And we keep up the practice from that day to this. 

Samuel Lover. 

(Contentment. 

" Man wants but little here below." 

Little I ask ; my wants are few ; 

I only wish a hut of stone, 
(A very plain brown stone will do,) 

That I may call my own ; 
And close at hand is such a one,' 
In yonder street that fronts the sun. 

Plain food is quite enough for me ; 

Three courses are as good as ten ; — 
If nature can subsist on three, 

Thank Heaven for three. Amen ! 
I always thought cold victuals nice ; — 
My choice would be vanilla ice. 

I care not much for gold or land ; — 

Give me a mortgage here and there, — 
Some good bank-stock, — some note of hand, 

Or trifling railroad share, — 
I only ask that Fortune send 
A little more than I shall spend. 

Honors are silly toys, I know, 

And titles are but empty names ; 
I would perhaps be Plenipo, — 
But only near St. James ; 
I 'm very sure I should not care 
To fill our G-ubernator's chair. 



CONTENTMENT. \ 2 3 

Jewels are baubles; 't is a sin 

To care for such unfruitful things ; — 
One good-sized diamond in a pin, — 

Some, not so large, in rings, — 
A ruby, and a pearl or so, 
Will do for me; — I laugh at show. 

My dame should dress in cheap attire 

(Good heavy silks are never dear ;) — 
I own perhaps I might desire 

Some shawls of true cashmere, — 
Some marrowy crapes of China silk, 
Like wrinkled skins on scalded milk. 

I would not have the horse I drive 

So fast that folks must stop and stare ; 
An easy gate, — two forty-five, — 
Suits me ; I do not care ; — 
Perhaps, for just a single spurt. 
Some seconds less would do no hurt. 

Of pictures, I should like to own 

Titians and Eaphaels three or four, — 
I love so much their style and tone, — 

One Turner, and no more, 
(A landscape, — foreground golden dirt, — 
The sunshine painted with a squirt). 

Of books but few, — some fifty score 
For daily use and bound for wear ; 
The rest upon an upper floor ; — 

Some little luxury there 
Of red morocco's gilded gleam, 
And vellum rich as country cream. 

Busts, cameos, gems, — such things as these, 
Which others often show for pride, 



124 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

I value for their power to please, 
And selfish churls deride ; — 
One Stradivarius, I confess, 
Two Meerschaums I would fain possess. 

Wealth's wasteful tricks I will not learn, 
Nor ape the glittering upstart fool ; — 
Shall not carved tables serve my turn, 

But all must be of buhl ? 
Give grasping pomp its double share, — 
I ask but one recumbent chair. 

Thus humble let me live and die, 

Nor long for Midas' golden touch; 
If Heaven more generous gifts deny, 

I shall not miss them much, — 
Too grateful for the blessing lent 
Of simple tastes and mind content ! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



Cf)e Gtrgstal palace. 

With ganial foire 

Thransfuse my loyre, 
Ye sacred nymphths of Pindus, 

The whoile I sing 

That wondthrous thing 
The Palace made o' windows ! 

Say, Paxton, truth, 

Thou wondthrous youth, 
What sthroke of art celistial 

What power was lint 

You to invint 
This coinbineetion cristial. 



THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 125 

would before 

That Thomas Moore 
Likewoise the late Lord Boyron, 

Thim aigles sthrong 

Of Godlike song, 
Cast oi on that cast oiron ! 



And glittering halls, 
Thim rising slendther columns, 

Which I, poor pote, 

Could not denote, 
No, not in twinty vollums. 

My Muse's words 

Is like the birds 
That roosts beneath the panes there ; 

Her wings she spoils 

'G-ainst them bright toiles, 
And cracks her silly brains there. 

This Palace tall, 

This Cristial Hall, 
Which imperors might covet, 

Stands in Hide Park 

Like Noah's Ark 
A rainbow bint above it. 

The towers and faynes, 

In other scaynes, 
The fame of this will undo, 

Saint Paul's big doom, 

St. Payther's Room, 
And Dublin's proud Rotundo. 

'T is here that roams, 
As well becomes 



126 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Her dignitee and stations, 

Victoria great, 

And houlds in state 
The Congress of the Nations. 

Her subjects pours 

From distant shores, 
Her Injians and Canajians, 

And also we, 

Her kingdoms three, 
Attind with our allagiance. 

Here comes likewise 

Her bould allies, 
Both Asian and Europian ; 

From East and West 

They sent their best 
To fill her Coornocopean. 

I seen (thank Grace !) 

This wondthrous place 
(His Noble Honor Misteer 

H. Cole it was 

That gave the pass, 
And let me see what is there.) 

With conscious proide 

I stud insoide 
And look'd the World's Great Fair in, 

Until me sight 

Was dazzled quite, 
And could n't see for staring. 

There 's holy saints 
And window paints, 



THE CRYSTAL PALACE. 127 

By Maydiayval Pugin; 

Alhamborough Jones 

Did paint the tones . 
Of yellow and gambouge in. 

There 's fountains there 
And crosses fair : 
There 's water-gods with urrns ; 
There 's organs three, 
To play, d' ye see, 
" G-od save the Queen," by turns. 

There 's statues bright 

Of marble white, 
Of silver and of copper, 

And some in zink, 

And some, I think, 
That is n't over proper. 

There 's staym Ingynes, 

That stand in lines, 
Enormous and amazing, 

That squeal and snort, 

Like whales in sport, 
Or elephants a-grazing. 

There 's carts and gigs, 

And pins for pigs ; 
There 's dibblers and there 's harrows, 

And plows like toys, 

For little boys, 
And illegant wheel-barrows. 

For them gen tools 
Who ride on wheels, 



I 



128 PLA Y-DA T P OEMS. 

There 's plenty to indulge 'em ; 

There 's Droskys snug 

From Paytersbug 
And vayhycles from Belgium. 

There 's Cabs on Stands, 

And Shandthry danns; 
There 's wagons from New York here ; 

There 's Lapland Sleighs, 

Have crossed the seas, 
And Jaunting Cars from Cork here. 

Amazed I pass 

From glass to glass, 
Deloighted I survey 'em ; 

Fresh wondthers grows 

Beneath me nose 
In this sublime Musayum. 

Look here 's a fan 

From far Japan, 
A saber from Damasco ; 

There 's shawls ye get 

From far Thibet, 
And cotton prints from Glasgow. 

There 's G-erman flutes, 

Marocky boots, 
And Naples Macaronies ; 

Bohaymia 

Has sent Bohay, 
Polonia her polonies. 

There 's granite flints 
That 's quite imminse 



THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 129 

There 's sacks of coals and fuels, 

There 's swords and guns, 

And soap in tuns, 
And Ginger-bread and Jewels. 

There 's taypots there, 

And cannons rare; 
There 's coffins filled with roses; 

There 's canvas tints, 

Teeth instruments, 
And shuits of clothes by Moses. 

There 's lashins more 

Of things in store, 
But thim I don't remimber ; 

JSTor could disclose 

Did I compose 
From May-time to jSTovimber. 

Ah, Judy thru ! 

With eyes so blue, 
That you were here to view it ! 

And could I screw 

But tu pound tu 
'T is I would thrait you to it. 

So let us raise 

Victoria's praise, 
And Albert's proud condition, 

That takes his ayse 

As he surveys 
This Crystal Exhibition. 

William Makepeace Thackeray. 



C^e Supper Superstition. 

'T was twelve o'clock by Chelsea chimes, 
When all in hungry trim, 11* 



130 PLA Y-DA Y POEMS. 

Good Mister Jupp sat down to sup 
With wife, and Kate, and Jim. 

Said he, " Upon this dainty cod 
How bravely I shall sup," — 

When, whiter than the tablecloth, 
A GHOST came rising up ! 

" 0, father dear, 0, mother dear, 
Dear Kate, and brother Jim, — 
You know when some one went to sea, — 
Don't cry — but I am him ! 

" You hope some day with fond embrace 
To greet your absent Jack. 
But oh, I am come here to say 
I 'm never coming back ! 

" From Alexandria we set sail, 
With corn, and oil, and figs, 
But steering ' too much Sow,' we struck 
Upon the Sow and Pigs ! 

" The Ship we pumped till we could see 
Old England from the tops ; 
When down she went with all our hands, 
Bight in the Channel's Chops. 

" Just give a look in JSTorey's chart, 
The very place it tells ; 
I think it says twelve fathom deep, 
Clay bottom, mixed with shells. 

"Well there we are till 'hands aloft,' 
We have at last a call ; 
The pug I had for brother Jim, 
Kate's parrot too, and all. 



THE SUPPER SUPERSTITION. 131 

"But oh, my spirit cannot rest, 
In Davy Jones's sod, 
Till I 've appeared to you and said, — 
Don't sup on that 'ere Cod 1 

" You live on land, and little think 
What passes in the sea ; 
Last Sunday week, at 2 p. m. 
That Cod was picking me ! 

" Those oysters too, that look so plump, 
And seem so nicely done, 
They put my corpse in many shells, 
Instead of only one. 

" 0, do not eat those oysters then, 
And do not touch the shrimps ; 
When I was in my briny grave, 
They sucked my blood like imps ! 

" Don't eat what brutes would never eat, 
The brutes I used to pat, 
They '11 know the smell they used to smell, 
Just try the dog and cat ! " 

The Spirit fled — they wept his fate, 

And cried, Alack, alack ! 
At last up started brother Jim, 
" Let 's try if Jack was Jack ? " 

They called the Dog, they called the Cat, 

And little Kitten too, 
And down they put the Cod and sauce, 

To see what brutes would do. 

Old Tray licked all the oysters up, 
Puss never stood at crimps, 



132 PL A Y-DA T P OEMS. 

But munched the Cod, — the little Kit 
Quite feasted on the shrimps ! 

The thing was odd, and minus Cod 
And sauce, they stood like posts ; 

0, prudent folks, for fear of hoax, 
Put no belief in Ghosts ! 

Thomas Hood. 



W$z dFat'r Jftfilmger. 

BY THE WATERTOWN HORSE-CAR CONDUCTOR. 

It was a millinger most gay, 

As sat within her shop ; 
A student came along that way, 

And in he straight did pop. 
Clean shaven he, of massive mould, 

He thought his looks was killing her ; 
So lots of stuff to him she sold : 
( ' Thanks ! " says the millinger. 

He loafed around and seemed to try 

On all things to converse ; 
The millinger did mind her eye, 

But also mound his purse. 
He tried, then, with his flattering tongue, 

With nonsense to be filling her ; 
But she was sharp, though she was young ; 
" Thanks," said the millinger. 

He asked her to the theatre, 

They got into my car ; 
Our steeds were tired, could hardly stir, 

He thought the way not far. 



LITTLE BILLEK 133 

A pretty pict-i-ure she made, 

No doctors had been pilling her ; 
Fairly the fair one's fare he paid : 
" Thanks ! " said the millinger. 

When we arrived in Bowdoin Square, 

A female to them ran ; 
Then says that millinger so fair : 
" 0, thank you, Mary Ann ! 
She 's going with us, she is," says she, 
" She only is fulfilling her 
Duty in looking after me : 
Thanks ! " said that millinger. 

"Why," says that student chap to her, 

"I 've but two seats to hand." 
" Too bad," replied that millinger, 
" Then you will have to stand." 
" I won't stand this," says he, " I own 

The joke which you 've been drilling her; 
Here, take the seats and go alone ! " 
" Thanks I " says the millinger. 

That ere much-taken-down young man 

Stepped back into my car. 
We got fresh horses, off they ran ; 

He thought the distance far. 
And now she is my better half, 

And oft, when coo-and-billing her, 
I think about that chap and laugh : 
" Thanks ! " says my millinger. 

Fred W. Loring. 

tUttle ISiUee. 

There were three sailors of Bristol City 
Who took a boat and went to sea, 
12 



134 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

But first with beef and captain's biscuits 
And pickled pork they loaded she. 

There was gorging Jack, and guzzling Jimmy, 
And the youngest he was little Billee ; 

Now when they 'd got as far as the Equator 
They 'd nothing left but one split pea. 

Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, 

"I am extremely hungaree." 
To gorging Jack says guzzling Jimmy, 

" We 've nothing left, us must eat we." 

Says gorging Jack to guzzling Jimmy, 
" With one another we should n't agree ! 
There 's little Bill, he 's young and tender, 
We 

" Billy ! we 're going to kill and eat you, 
So undo the button of your chemie." 
When Bill received this information, 
He used his pocket-handkerchie. 

" First let me say my catechism 

Which my poor mother taught to me." 

" Make haste ! make haste ! " says guzzling Jimmy, 
While Jack pulled out his snickersnee. 

Billy went up to the main-top-gallant mast, 
And down he fell on his bended knee, 

He scarce had come to the Twelfth Commandment 
When up he jumps — " There 's land I see ! " 

" Jerusalem and Madagascar 

And North and South Amerikee, 
There 's the British flasr a riding at anchor, 



With Admiral Napier, K. C. B." 



TEE YARN OF TEE "NANCY BELL." 135 

So when they got aboard of the Admiral's, 
He hanged fat Jack and flogged Jimmee, 

But as for little Bill he made him 
The Captain of a Seventy-three. 

William Makepeace Thackeray. 



ftje ¥ant of tf)e "Kancg fceli," 

'T was on the shores that round our coast 

From Deal to Ramsgate span, 
That I found alone, on a piece of stone, 

An elderly naval man. 

His hair was weedy, his beard was long, 

And weedy and long was he ; 
And I heard this wight on the shore recite, 

In a singular minor key : 

" 0, I am a cook and a captain bold, 
And the mate of the Nancy brig, 
And a bo' sun tight, and a midshipmite, 
And the crew of the captain's gig." 

And he shook his fists and tore his hair 

Till I really felt afraid, 
For I could n't help thinking the man had been drink- 
ing, 

And so I simply said : 

" elderly man, it 's little I know 
Of the duties of men of the sea, 



And I '11 eat my hand if I understand 
How you can possibly be 

" At once a cook and a captain bold, 
And the mate of the Nancy brig, 



1 3 6 PL A Y-J) A Y P OEMS. 

And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, 
And the crew of the captain's gig ! " 

Then he gave a hitch to his trousers, which 

Is a trick all seamen lam, 
And having got rid of a thumping quid 

He span this painful yarn : 

" 'T was in the good ship Nancy Bell 
That we sailed to the Indian sea, 
And there on a reef we come to grief, 
Which has often occurred to me. 

" And pretty nigh all o' the crew was drowned 
(There was seventy-seven o' soul) ; 
And only ten of the Nancy's men 
Said ' Here ' to the muster-roll. 

" There was me, and the cook, and the captain bold, 
And the mate of the Nancy brig, 
And a bo'sun tight and a midshipmite, 
And the crew of the captain's gig. 

" For a month we 'd neither wittles nor drink, 
Till a hungry we did feel, 
So we drawed a lot, and, accordin', shot 
The captain for our meal. 

" The next lot fell to the Nancy's mate, 
And a delicate dish he made ; 
Then our appetite with the midshipmite 
We seven survivors stayed. 

"And then we murdered the bo'sun tight, 
And he much resembled pig; 
Then we wittled free, did the cook and me, 
On the crew of the captain's gig. 



THE YARN OF THE « NANCY BELL." 137 

" Then only the cook and me was left, 
And the delicate question, ' Which 
Of us two goes to the kettle ? ' arose, 
And we argued it out as sich. 

" For I loved that cook as a brother, I did, 
And the cook he worshiped me ; 
But we 'd both be blowed if we 'd either be stowed 
In the other chap's hold, you see. 

" ' I '11 be eat if you dines off me,' says Tom. 
'Yes, that,' says I, ' you '11 be. 
I 'm boiled if I die, my friend,' quoth I; 
And ' Exactly so,' quoth he. 

" Says he ' Dear James, to murder me 
Were a foolish thing to do, 
For do n't you see that you can't cook me, 
While I can — and will — cook you ? ' 

" So he boils the water, and takes the salt 
And the pepper in portions true 
(Which he never forgot), and some chopped shalot, 
And some sage and parsley too. 

" ' Come here,' says he, with a proper pride, 

Which his smiling features tell ; 
' 'T will soothing be if I let you see 
How extremely nice you '11 smell.' 

"And he stirred it round, and round, and round, 
And he sniffed at the foaming froth ; 
When I ups with his heels, and smothers his squeals 
In the scum of the boiling broth. 

"And I eat that cook in a week or less, 
And as I eating be 



138 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

The last of his chops, why I almost drops, 
For a wessel in sight I see. 

" And I never larf , and I never smile, 
And I never lark nor play ; 
But I sit and croak, and a single joke 
I have — which is to say : 

" 0, I am a cook and a captain bold 
And the mate of the Nancy brig, 
And a bo'sun tight, and a midshipmite, 
And the crew of the captain's gig! " 

William S. Gilbert. 

l&Sgmeof tf)el£atl. 



Rattling over ridges, 
Shooting under arches, 

Rumbling over bridges, 
Whizzing through the mountains, 

Buzzing o'er the vale, — 
Bless me ! this is pleasant, 

Riding on the Rail! 

Men of different stations 

In the eye of Fame 
Here are very quickly 

Coming to the same. 
High and lowly people, 

Birds of every feather, 
On a common level 

Traveling together. 

Gentleman in shorts, 
Looming very tall ; 






BHYME OF THE BAIL. 139 

Gentleman at large, 

Talking very small ; 
Gentleman in tights, 

With a loose-ish mien ; 
Gentleman in gray, 

Looking rather green. 

Gentleman quite old, 

Asking for the news; 
Gentleman in black, 

In a fit of blues ; 
Gentleman in claret, 

Sober as a vicar ; 
Gentleman in tweed, 

Dreadfully in liquor ! 

Stranger on the right, 

Looking very sunny, 
Obviously reading 

Something rather funny. 
Now the smiles are thicker, 

Wonder what they mean ? 
Faith, he 's got the Knicker- 

Bocker Magazine ! 

Stranger on the left, 

Closing up his peepers ; 
Now he snores amain, 

Like the Seven Sleepers ; 
At his feet a volume 

Gives the explanation, 
How the man grew stupid 

From " Association " ! 

Ancient maiden lady 
Anxiously remarks, 



140 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

That there must be peril 
'Mong so many sparks ! 

Roguish-looking fellow, 
Turning to the stranger, 

it 's his opinion 
She is out of danger ! 



Woman with her baby, 

Sitting vis-a-vis ; 
Baby keeps a squalling; 

Woman looks at me ; 
Asks about the distance, 

Says it 's tiresome talking, 
Noises of the cars 

Are so very shocking ! 

Market-woman careful 

Of the precious casket, 
Knowing eggs are eggs, 

Tightly holds her basket ; 
Feeling that a smash, 

If it came, would surely 
Send her eggs to pot 

Rather prematurely ! 



Singing through the forest, 

Rattling over ridges, 
Shooting under arches, 

Rumbling over bridges, 
Whizzing through the mountains, 

Buzzing o'er the vale ; 
Bless me ! this is pleasant, 

Riding on the Rail ! 

John Godfrey Saxe. 



THE NEED Y KNIFE- GRINDER. \ \ \ 

Cfje iaertig ftntfe'^rtntier. 

FRIEND OF HUMANITY. 

Needy knife-grinder, whither are you going ? 
Eough is the road; your wheel is out of order. 
Bleak blows the blast; your hat has got a hole in 't; 
So have your breeches! 

Weary knife-grinder ! little think the proud ones, 
Who in their coaches roll along the turnpike- 
Road, what hard work 't is crying all clay 'Knives and 
Scissors to grind ! ' 

Tell me, knife-grinder, uoav came you to grind knives? 
Did some rich man tyrannically use you ? 
Was it the squire? or parson of the parish? 
Or the attorney ? 

Was it the squire for killing of his game ? or 
Covetous parson for his tithes distraining ? 
Or roguish lawyer made you lose your little 
All in a lawsuit ? 

(Have you not read the Rights of Man, by Tom Paine ?) 
Drops of compassion tremble on my eyelids, 
Ready to fall as soon as you have told your 
Pitiful story. 

KNIFE-GRINDER. 

Story ! Ood bless you ! I have none to tell, sir ; 
Only, last night, a-drinking at the Chequers, 
This poor old hat and breeches, as you see, were 
Torn in a scuffle. 



Constables came up for to take me into 
■ Custody ; they took me before the justice 
12* 



142 PL A Y-DAY P OEMS. 

Justice Oldmixon put me in the parish- 
Stocks for a vagrant. 

I should be glad to drink your honor's health in 
A pot of beer, if you will give me sixpence ; 
But for my part, I never love to meddle 
With politics, sir. 

FRIEND OF HUMANITY. 

I give thee sixpence ! I will see thee damned first — 
Wretch! whom no sense of wrongs can rouse to ven- 
geance — 
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded, 
Spiritless outcast! 

[Kicks the knife-grinder, overturns his wheel, and exit in a transpoi t 
of republican enthusiasm and universal philanthropy.'] 

George Canning. 



Gtuvener B. is a sensible man ; 

He stays to his home an' looks arter his folks ; 
He draws his furrer ez straight ez he can, 
An' into nobody's tater-patch pokes ; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Gruvener B. 

My ! ain't it terrible ? Wut shall we du ! 

We can't never choose him o' course, — thet 's flat : 
G-uess we shall hev to come round, (don't you ?) 
An' go in fer thunder an' guns, an' all that ; 
Fer John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he wunt vote fer Gruvener B. 



WHAT MR. ROBINSON THINKS. , 143 

G-ineral C. is a dreffle smart man : 

He 's ben on all sides thet give places or pelf ; 
But consistency still wuz a part of his plan, — 

He 's ben true to one party, — an' thet is himself; — 
So John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he shall vote for Gineral C. 

Gineral C. he goes in fer the war ; 

He don't vally principle more 'n an old cud; 
Wut did God make us raytional creeturs fer, 
But glory an' gunpowder, plunder an' blood ? 
So John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez he shall vote fer Gineral C. 



We were gittin' on nicely up here to our village, 

With good old ideas o' wut 's right an' wut ain't, 
We kind o' thought Christ went agin war an' pillage, 
An' thet eppyletts wor n't the best mark of a saint; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez this kind o' thing 's an exploded idee. 

The side of our country must oilers be took, 

An' Presidunt Polk, you know, he is our country, 
An' the angel thet writes all our sins in a book 
Puts the debit to him, an' to us the per contry ; 
An' John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez this is his view o' the thing to a T. 

Parson Wilbur he calls all these argimunts lies ; 
Sez they 're nothin' on airth but jest fee, f aw, f urn : 



1 4 4 PL A Y-DAY P OEMS. 

An' that all this big talk of our destinies 
Is half on it ign'ance, an' t' other half rum; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez it ain't no sech thing; an', of course, so must we. 

Parson Wilbur sez he never heerd in his life 

Thet th' Apostles rigged out in their swaller-tail coats, 
An' marched round in front of a drum an' a fife, 
To git some on 'em office, an' some on 'em votes; 
But John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez they did n't know every thin' down in Judee. 

Wal, it 's a marcy we 've gut folks to tell us 

The rights an' the wrongs o' these matters, I vow, — 
G-od sends country lawyers, an' other wise fellers, 
To start the world's team wen it gits in a slough ; 
Fer John P. 
Robinson he 
Sez the world '11 go right, ef he hollers out Gee ! 
James Russell Lowell. 

Cje ©wise of t\\t jFlora. 

Last week I went to Barnegat, 

All on a shooting spree ; 
And I will take and eat my hat 

If 't was not jollity. 

The piping winds across the sky 

Full many a cloud did blow, 
The while we piped, my friends and I, 

A jollier cloud below. 

Though Barnegat boasts no great man 
Who paints, or speaks, or writes, 



THE CRUISE OF THE FLORA. 145 

Whoever threads her channel can 
Descry some shining lights. 

And there we lay three days, I ween, 

Nor moved with sails or oars ; 
The only game that we had seen 

Was euchre, or all fours. 

But M T hen the sun, one morning, shone, 

Dispelling cold and cough, 
Good gracious ! how we all went on, 

And how our guns went off! 

The ducks and geese came flying round, 

And though they were no fools, 
A number fell upon the ground, 

'T was said, between two stools. 

In Manahawkin swamp, we heard, 

That one, with gun or snare, 
Might capture bear ; but some averred 

The swamp was bare of bear. 

So hunting bear we did not go, 

Our sport was quantum suff ; 
And several tore their trousers so, 

They had bare-skin enough. 

We sailed 'twixt island shores of grass : 

The channel there is shoal : 
And as we bowled along the pass, 

We passed along the bowl. 

A wreck on shore outlived the gale, 

But sailors none were here, 
So when they wanted to make sale 

They got an auctioneer. 
13 



146 FLA Y-DAY POEMS. 

(These 'long-shore sales, as I suspect, 

Are humbug and a curse. 
The ship by breakers may be wrecked, 

But brokers are far worse.) 

For Tuckerton our sails we set, 
Some stores and things to buy ; 

And though we all got very wet, 
We all felt very dry. 

And if you want to take us down . . . 

Our looks, and what we wore . . . 
The people of that little town 

Can tell you something more. 

Our week was up; we headed toward 
Egg Harbor's bar of foam ; 

We were not free to go abroad, 
So w r e were bound for home. 

At Little Egg . . . the pass, you know . , 
The wind was blowing free; 

We doubted if 't was safe to go, 
But we went out to sea. 

'T was growing cold, and dark, and late, 
We saw nor moon nor star ; 

Our skipper steered for one thing straight, 
The buoy behind the bar. 

All night our northward course we lay 
Till off the first Hook light, 

Where, as we hankered for the day, 
We anchored for the night. 

Next morn we rose betimes, and saw 
The billows wash and comb, 



TOPSIDE QALAH! 147 

"While we went dirty as before, 
Until we reached our home. 

Thus closed our trip to Barnegat, 

'T was finished up and done ; 
And I will take and eat my hat 

If 't was n't jolly fun. 

George Arnold. 

That nightee teem he come chop chop, 
One young man walkee, no can stop ; 
Colo makee, icee makee ; 
He got flag ; chop b'long welly culio, see — 
Topside Gralah! 

He too muchee folly ; one piecee eye 
Lookee sharp — so fashion — alia same mi; 
He talkee largee, talkee stlong, 
To muchee culio ; alia same gong — 
Topside Gralah ! 

Inside any housee he can see light ; 
Any piecee loom got fire all light ; 
He lookee see plenty ice more high ; 
Inside he mouf he plenty cly — 
Topside Gralah! 

" No can walkee ! " olo man speakee he ; 
"Bimeby lain come, no can see; 

Hab got water welly wide ! " 

Maskee, mi must go topside — 
Topside Gralah! 

"Man-man," one galo talkee he, 

" What for you go topside look see ? " 



148 PLAT-DAY POEMS. 

" Nother teem," he makee plenty cly, 
Maskee, alia teem walkee plenty high — 
Topside G-alah! 

" Take care that spilum tlee, young man ; 
Take care that icee I " he no man-man 
That coolie. chin-chin he good-night; 
He talkee "mi can go all light" — 
Topside Galah ! 

Joss pidgin man chop-chop begin, 
Morning teem that Joss chin-chin, 
No see any man. he plenty fear, 
Cause some man talkee, he can hear — 
Topside G-alah! 

Young man makee die; one largee dog see 
Too muchee bobbery, findee he. 
Hand too muchee colo, inside can stop 
Alia same piecee flag, got culio chop — 
Topside G-alah! 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 
Anonymous translation. 

% i&ccturnal £feetcj). 

Even is come ; and from the dark Park hark, 
The signal of the setting sun — one gun ! 
And six is sounding from the chime, prime time 
To go and see the Drury-Lane Dane slain, — 
Or hear Othello's jealous doubt spout out, — 
Or Macbeth raving at that shade-made blade, 
Den}ang to his frantic clutch much touch ; — 
Or else to see Ducrow with wide stride ride 
Four horses as no other man can span ; 
Or in the small Olympic Pit, sit split 
Laughing at Liston, while you. quiz his phiz. 






DRURY'S DIRGE. 149 

Anon Night comes, and with her wings brings things 

Such as, with his poetic tongue, Young sung ; 

The gas up-blazes with its bright white light, 

And paralytic watchmen prowl, howl, growl, 

About the streets and take up Pail-Mall Sal, 

"Who, hasting to her nightly jobs, robs fobs. 

Now thieves to enter for your cash, smash, crash, 

Past drowsy Charley, in a deep sleep, creep, 

But frightened by Policeman B. 3, flee, 

And while they 're going, whisper low, — " No go ! " 

Now puss, while folks are in their beds, treads leads, 
And sleepers waking, grumble — " Drat that cat ! " 
Who in the gutter caterwauls, squalls, mauls 
Some feline foe, and screams in shrill ill-will. 

Now Bulls of Bashan, of a prize size, rise 
In childish dreams, and with a roar gore poor 
G-eorgy, or Charley, or Billy, willy-nilly ; — 
But Nursemaid in a nightmare's rest, chest-pressed, 
Dreameth of one of her old flames, James Games, 
And that she hears — what faith is man's ! — Ann's banns 
And his, from Reverend Mr. Rice, twice, thrice ; 
White ribbons flourish, and a stout shout out, 
That upward goes, shows Rose knows those bows' woes ! 

Thomas Hood. 



BY LAURA MATILDA. 

Balmy Zephyrs, lightly flitting, 
Shade me with your azure wing ; 

On Parnassus' summit sitting, 
Aid me, Clio, while I sing. 



150 PL A T-DA Y P OEMS. 

Softly slept the dome of Drury 

O'er the empyreal crest, 
When Alecto's sister-fury 

Softly slumb'ring sunk to rest. 

Lo ! from Lemnos limping lamely, 
Lags the lowly Lord of Fire, 

Cytherea yielding tamely 

To the Cyclops dark and dire. 

Clouds of amber, dreams of gladness, 
Dulcet joys and sports of youth, 

Soon must yield to haughty sadness ; 
Mercy holds the veil to Truth. 

See Erostratus the second 
Fires again Diana's fane ; 

By the Fates from Orcus beckon' d, 
Clouds enveloped Drury Lane. 

Lurid smoke and frank suspicion 
Hand in hand reluctant dance : 

While the G-od fulfills his mission, 
Chivalry resign thy lance. 

Hark ! the engines blandly thunder, 
Fleecy clouds dishevell'd lie, 

And the firemen, mute with wonder, 
On the son of Saturn cry. 

See the bird of Ammon sailing, 
Perches on the engine's peak, 

And, the Eagle firemen hailing, 

Soothes them with its bickering beak. 



Lost the prize that Paris gave : 






K K— CAN'T CALCULATE. 151 

Jealousy's ensanguined chalice. 
Mantling pours the orient wave. 

Pan beheld Patroclus dying, 

Nox to Niobe was turn'd; 
From Busiris Bacchus flying, 

Saw his Semele inurn'd. 

Thus fell Drury's lofty glory, 

Levell'd with the shuddering stones ; 

Mars, with tresses black and gory, 
Drinks the dew of pearly groans. 

Hark ! what soft Eolian numbers 

Gem the blushes of the morn ! 
Break, Amphion, break your slumbers, 

Nature's ringlets deck the thorn. 

Ha ! I hear the strain erratic 

Dimly glance from pole to pole ; 
Raptures sweet and dreams ecstatic 

Fire my everlasting souL 

Where is Cupid's crimson motion ? 

Billowy ecstasy of woe, 
Bear me straight, meandering ocean, 

Where the stagnant torrents flow. 

Blood in every vein is gushing, 

Vixen vengeance lulls my heart ; 
See, the Gorgon gang is rushing! 

Never, never let us part ! 

Horace Smith. 

It. It— OTan't Calculate, 

What poor short-sighted worms we be ; 
For we can't calculate. 



152 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

"With any sort of sartintee, 
What is to be our fate. 

These words Prissilla's heart did reach, 
And caused her tears to flow, 

When first she heard the Elder preach, 
About six months ago. 

How true it is what he did state, 

And thus affected her, 
That nobody can't calculate 
What is a-gwine to occur. 

When we retire, can't calculate 

But what afore the morn 
Our housen will conflaggerate, 

And we be left forlorn. 

Can't calculate when we come in 

From any neighborin' place, 
Whether we '11 ever go out agin 

To look on natur's face. 

Can't calculate upon the weather, 

It always changes so ; 
Hain't got no means of telling whether 

It 's gwine to rain or snow. 

Can't calculate with no precision 

On naught beneath the sky ; 
And so I 've come to the decision 

That 't ain't worth while to try, 

Frances M. Whitcher. 



Hobers, atttJ a Inflection* 

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter 
(And heaven it knoweth what that may mean ; 



LOVERS, AND A REFLECTION. 153 

Meaning, however, is no great matter), 

Where woods are a-tremble, with rifts atween; 

Through God's own heather we wonned together, 

I and my Willie (0 love my love) : 
I need hardly remark it was glorious weather, 

And flitter bats wavered alow, above : 

Boats were curtseying, rising, bowing, 

(Boats in that climate are so polite,) 
And sands were a ribbon of green endowing 

And the sun-dazzle on bark and bight ! 

Through the rare red heather we danced together, 
(0 love my Willie !) and smelt for flowers : 

I must mention again it was gorgeous weather, 
Ehymes are so scarce in this world of ours : — 

By rises that flushed with their purple favors, 
Through becks that brattled o'er grasses sheen, 

We walked or waded, we two young shavers, 
Thanking our stars we were both so green. 

We journeyed in parallels, I and Willie, 

In fortunate parallels! Butterflies, 
Hid in weltering shadows of daffodilly 

Or marjoram, kept making peacock eyes : 

Song-birds darted about, some inky 

As coal, some snowy (I ween) as curds ; 

Or rosy as pinks, or as roses pinky — 

They reck of no eerie To-come, those birds ! 

But they skim over bents which the mill-stream washes, 
Or hang in the lift 'neath a white cloud's hem : 

They need no parasols, no goloshes ; 

And good Mrs. Trimmer she feedeth them. 
13* 



154 PLAY-DAT POEMS. 

Then we thrid God's cowslips (as erst His heather), 
That endowed the wan grass with their golden blooms ; 

And snapt — (it was perfectly charming weather) - 
Our ringers at Fate and her goddess glooms : 

And Willy 'gan sing— (0, his notes were fluty; 

Wafts fluttered them out to the white-winged sea) — 
Something made up of rhymes that have done much duty, 

Rhymes (better to put it) of " ancientry " : 

Bowers of flowers encounted showers 
In William's carol — (0 love my Willie !) 

Then he bade sorrow borrow from blithe to-morrow 
I quite forget what — say a daffodilly : 

A nest in a hollow, " with buds to follow," 
I think occurred next in his nimble strain, 

And clay was " kneaden" of course in Eden — 
A rhyme most novel, I do maintain : 

Mists, bones, the singer himself, love stories, 
And all the least furlable things got "furled " ; 

Not with any design to conceal their glories, 
But simply and solely to rhyme with " world." 

if billows and pillows and hours and flowers, 
And all the brave rhymes of an elder day, 

Could be furled together, this genial weather, 
And carted, or carried on wafts away, 

Nor ever again trotted out — ay me ! 

How much fewer volumes of verse there 'd be! 

Charles S. Calverley. 

ISUgg on a Jftafc Bog* 

Good people, all of every sort, 
Give ear unto my song ; 






ELEGY ON A MAD DOG. 155 

And if you find it wondrous short, 
It cannot hold you long. 

In Islington there was a man, 

Of whom the world might say 
That still a godly race he ran, 

Whene'er he went to pray. 

A kind and gentle heart he had, 

To comfort friends and foes ; 
The naked every day he clad, 

When he put on his clothes. 

And in that town a dog was found, 

As many dogs there be, 
Both mongrel, puppy, whelp, and hound, 

And curs of low degree. 

This dog and man at first were friends ; 

But when a pique began, 
The dog, to gain his private ends, 

Went mad, and bit the man. 

Around from all the neighboring streets 

The wondering neighbors ran, 
And swore the dog had lost his wits, 



The wound it seemed both sore and sad 

To every Christian eye : 
And while they swore the dog was mad, 

They swore the man would die. 

But soon a wonder came to light, 
That showed the rogues they lied : 

The man recovered of the bite. 
The dog it was that died. 

Oliver Goldsmith. 



156 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

ISlegg on tf)e <©lcrg of jer &ex, iHFlrs. iHarg 
ISlat>e. 

Good people all, with one accord 

Lament for Madame Blaize, 
Who never wanted a good word — 

From those who spoke her praise. 

The needy seldom passed her door, 

And always found her kind ; 
She freely lent to all the poor — 

Who left a pledge behind. 

She strove the neighborhood to please 
With manners wondrous winning ; 

And never followed wicked ways — 
Unless when she was sinning. 



With hoop of monstrous size, 
She never slumbered in her pew — 
But when she shut her eyes. 

Her love was sought, I do aver, 

By twenty beaux and more ; 
The king himself has folloAved her — 

When she has walked before. 

But now, her wealth and finery fled, 

Her hangers-on cut short all, 
The doctors found, when she was dead — 

Her last disorder mortal. 

Let us lament in sorrow sore, 

For Kent street well may say, 
That had she lived a twelvemonth more, 

She had not died to-day. 

Oliver Goldsmith. 



BALLAD. 157 

ISaUa*. 

The auld wife sat at her ivied door 

(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese), 

A thing she had frequently done before ; 

And her spectacles lay on her aproned knees. 

The piper he piped on the hill-top high 
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese), 

Till the cow said " I die," and the goose asked " Why ? ' ; 
And the dog said nothing, but searched for fleas. 

The farmer he strode through the square farm-yard 
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) ; 

His last brew of ale was a trifle hard — 

The connection of which with the plot one sees. 

The farmer's daughter hath frank blue eyes 
(Butter and eggs and a 'pound of cheese) ; 

She hears the rooks caw in the windy skies, 
As she sits at her lattice and shells her peas. 

The farmer's daughter hath ripe red lips 
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) ; 

If you try to approach her, away she skips 
Over tables and chairs with apparent ease. 

The farmer's daughter hath soft brown hair 
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) ; 

And I met with a ballad, I can't say where, 
Which wholly consisted of lines like these. 

She sat with her hands 'neath her dimpled cheeks 
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese), 

And spake not a word. While a lady speaks 
There is hope, but she did n't even sneeze. 
14 



158 PLA Y-DA T P OEMS. 

She sat with her hands 'neath her crimson cheeks 
{Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) ; 

She gave up mending her father's breeks, 
And let the cat roll in her best chemise. 

She sat with her hands 'neath her burning cheeks 
{Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese), 

And gazed at the piper for thirteen weeks ; 
Then she followed him out o'er the misty leas. 

Her sheep followed her, as their tails did them 
(Butter and eggs and a pound of cheese) ; 

And this song is considered a perfect gem, 
And as to the meaning, it 's what you please. 

Charles S. Calverlet. 

CJe Soctetj) upon tfje Stanteloto. 

I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful 

James. 
I am not up to small deceit, or any sinful games ; 
And I '11 tell in simple language what I know about the 

row 
That broke up our society upon the Stanislow. 

But first I would remark, that it is not a proper plan 
For any scientific gent to whale his fellow-man, 
And, if a member don't agree with his peculiar whim, 
To lay for that same member for to " put a head " on him. 

Now, nothing could be finer or more beautiful to see 
Than the first six months' proceedings of that same society, 
Till Brown of Calaveras brought a lot of fossil bones 
That he found within a tunnel near the tenement of Jones. 

Then Brown he read a paper, and he reconstructed there, 
From those same bones, an animal that was extremely rare ; 



THE SOCIETY UPON THE STANISLOW. 159 

And Jones then asked the Chair for a suspension of the 

rules, 
Till he could prove that those same bones was one of his 

lost mules. 

Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, and said he was at 

fault, 
It seemed he had been trespassing on Jones's family vault ; 
He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown ; 
And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town. 

Now, I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent 
To say another is an ass, — at least to all intent : 
Nor should the individual who happened to be meant 
Reply by heaving rocks at him to any great extent. 

Then Abner Dean of Angel's raised a point of order — when 
A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen ; 
And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the 

floor, 
And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more. 

For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage 

In a warfare with the remnants of a palaeozoic age ; 

And the way they heaved those fossils in their anger was a 

. sin, 
Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thomp- 
son in. 

And this is all I have to say of these improper games : 

For I live at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful 

James ; 
And I 've told in simple language what I know about the 

row 
That broke up our society upon the Stanislow. 

Bret Harte. 



1 60 PLA T-DA T POEMS. 

€f)e mixCH Mm an* tf)e IHlepjant 

It was six men of Indostan 
To learning much inclined, 

Who went to see the Elephant 
(Though all of them were blind), 

That each by observation 
Might satisfy his mind. 

The First approached the Elephant, 

And happening to fall 
Against his broad and sturdy side, 
At once began to bawl : 
" GTod bless me ! but the Elephant 
Is very like a wall ! " 

The Second, feeling of the tusk, 
Cried, " Ho ! what have we here 

So very round and smooth and sharp ? 
To me 't is mighty clear 

This wonder of an elephant 
Is very like a spear ! " 

The Third approached the animal, 

And happening to take 
The squirming trunk within his hands, 

Thus boldly up and spake : 
"I see," quoth he, "the Elephant 

Is very like a snake ! " 

The Fourth reached out his eager hand, 

And felt about the knee. 
" What most this wondrous beast is like 

Is mighty plain," quoth he ; 
" 'T is clear enough the Elephant 

Is very like a tree ! " 



THE STA GE-DRIVER'S STOR Y. 161 

The Fifth, who chanced to touch an ear, 

Said: "E'en the blindest man 
Can tell what this resembles most; 

Deny the fact who can. 
This marvel of an Elephant 

Is very like a fan ! " 

The Sixth no sooner had begun 

About the beast to grope, 
Than, seizing on the swinging tail 

That fell within his scope, 
! I see," quoth he, " the Elephant 

Is very like a rope ! " 

And so these men of Indostan 

Disputed loud and long, 
Each in his own opinion 

Exceeding stiff and strong, 
Though each was partly in the right, 

And all were in the wrong ! 



So oft in theologic wars, 

The disputants, I ween, 
Rail on in utter ignorance 

Of what each other mean, 
And prate about an Elephant 

Not one of them has seen ! 

John Godfrey Saxe. 

^Tfje Stage^Enber's Jctotg. 

It was the stage-driver's story, as he stood with his back to 

the wheelers, 
Quietly necking his whip, and turning his quid of tobacco; 



162 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

While on the dusty road, and blent with the rays of the 

moonlight, 
We saw the long curl of his lash and the juice of tobacco 

descending. 

" Danger ! Sir, I believe you, — indeed, I may say on that 

subject, 
Y"ou your existence might put to the hazard and turn of a 

wager. 
[ have seen danger? Oh, no! not me, sir, indeed, I assure 

you: 
'T was only the man with the dog that is sitting alone in 

yon wagon. 

" It was the G-eiger Grade, a mile and a half from the sum- 
mit: 

Black as your hat was the night, and never a star in the 
heavens. 

Thundering down the grade, the gravel and stones we sent 
flying 

Over the precipice side, — a thousand feet plumb to the 
bottom. 

" Half-way down the grade I felt, sir, a thrilling and 

creaking, 
Then a lurch to one side, as we hung on the bank of the 

canon ; 
Then, looking up the road, I saw, in the distance behind 

me, 
The off hind wheel of the coach just loosed from its axle, ' 

and following. 

" One glance alone I gave, then gathered together my rib- 
bons, 

Shouted, and flung them, outspread, on the straining necks 
of my cattle ; 



THE STAGE-DRIVERS STORY. 163 

Screamed at the top of my voice, and lashed the air in my 

frenzy, 
While down the Geiger Grade, on three wheels, the vehicle 

thundered. 

" Speed was our only chance, and again came the ominous 
rattle : 

Crack, and another wheel slipped away, and was lost in the 
darkness. 

Two only now were left ; yet such was our fearful momen- 
tum, 

Upright, erect, and sustained on tivo wheels, the vehicle 
thundered. 

" As some huge bowlder, unloosed from its rocky shelf on 
the mountain, 

Drives before it the hare and the timorous squirrel, far- 
leaping, 

So down the Geiger Grade rushed the Pioneer coach, and 
before it 

Leaped the wild horses, and shrieked in advance of the 
danger impending. 

" But to be brief in my tale. Again, ere we came to the 
level, 

Slipped from its axle a wheel ; so that, to be plain in my 
statement, 

A matter of twelve hundred yards or more, as the distance 
may be, 

We traveled upon one wheel, until we drove up to the sta- 
tion. 

" Then, sir, we sank in a heap : but picking myself from the 

ruins, 
I heard a noise up the grade; and looking, I saw in the 

distance 



164 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

The three wheels following still, like moons on the horizon 

whirling, 
Till, circling, they gracefully sank on the road at the side of 

the station. 

" This is my story, sir : a trifle, indeed, I assure you. 
Much more, perchance, might be said; but I hold him, of 

all men, most lightly 
Who swerves from the truth in his tale — No, thank you — 

Well, since you are pressing, 
Perhaps I do n't care if I do : you may give me the same, 

Jim, — no sugar." 

Bret Harte. 

W$z perils of Jfobfetfcilttfi. 

Old Peter led a wretched life — 
Old Peter had a furious wife ; 
Old Peter too was truly stout, 
He measured several yards about 

The little fairy Picklekin 
One summer afternoon looked in, 
And said, " Old Peter, how de do ? 
Can I do anything for you ? 

" I have three gifts — the first will give 
Unbounded riches while you live ; 
The second, health where'er you be ; 
The third, invisibility." 

" little fairy Picklekin," 

Old Peter answered with a grin, 
" To hesitate would be absurd, — 

Undoubtedly I choose the third." 



THE PERILS OF INVISIBILITY. 165 

"'T is yours," the fairy said; "be quite 
Invisible to mortal sight 
Whene'er you please. Remember me 
Most kindly, pray, to Mrs. P." 

Old Mrs. Peter overheard 

Wee Picklekin's concluding word, 

And jealous of her girlhood's choice, 

Said, " That was some young woman's voice ! " 

Old Peter let her scold and swear — 
Old Peter, bless him, did n't care. 
" My dear, your rage is wasted quite — 
Observe, I disappear from sight ! " 

A well-bred fairy (so I 've heard) 
Is always faithful to her word : 
Old Peter vanished like a shot, 
But then — Ms suit of clothes did not. 

For when conferred the fairy slim 
Invisibility on him, 
She popped away on fairy wings, 
Without referring to his "things." 

So there remained a coat of blue, 
A vest and double eye-glass too, 
His stock, his shoes, his socks as well, 
His pair of — no, I must not tell. 

Old Mrs. Peter soon began 
To see the failure of his plan, 
And then resolved (I quote the Bard) 
To " hoist him with his own petard." 

Old Peter woke next day and dressed, 
Put on his coat and shoes and vest, 
14* 



1 GG PLA Y-DA Y POEMS. 

His shirt and stock — but could not find 
His only pair of — never mind ! 

Old Peter was a decent man, 
And though he twigged his lady's plan, 
Yet, hearing her approaching, he 
Resumed invisibility. 

" Dear Mrs. P., my only joy," 
Exclaimed the horrified old boy ; 

l ' Now give them up, I beg of you — 
You know what I 'm referring to ! " 

But no ; the cross- old lady swore 
She 'd keep his — what I said before — 
To make him publicly absurd ; 
And Mrs. Peter kept her word. 

The poor old fellow had no rest; 
His coat, his stock, his shoes, his vest, 
Were all that now met mortal eye — 
The rest, invisibility ! 

" Now, madam, give them up, I beg — 
I 've bad rheumatics in my leg ; 
Besides, until you do, it 's plain 
I cannot come to sight again ! 

" For though some mirth it might afford 
To see my clothes without their lord, 
Yet there would rise indignant oaths 
If he were seen without his clothes ! " 

But no ; resolved to have her quiz, 
The lady held her own — and his — 
And Peter left his humble cot 
To find a pair of — you know what. 



CHIQU1TA. ID! 

But — here 's the worst of this affair — 
Whene'er he came across a pair 
Already placed for him to don, 
He was too stout to get them on ! 

So he resolved at once to train, 
And walked and walked with all his main ; 
For years he paced this mortal earth, 
To bring himself to decent girth. 

At night when all around is still, 
You '11 find him pounding up a hill ; 
And shrieking peasants whom he meets, 
Fall down in terror on the peats. 

Old Peter walks through wind and rain, 
Resolved to train, and train, and train, 
Until he weighs twelve stone or so — 
And when he does I '11 let you know. 

William S. Gilbert. 



(Kijtqtutta. 

Beautiful ! Sir, you may say so. Thar is n't her match in 

the country. 
Is thar, old gal ? Chiquita, my darling, my beauty ! 
Feel of that neck, sir — thar 's velvet ! Whoa ! Steady — ah, 

will you. you vixen! 
Whoa ! I say, Jack, trot her out ; let the gentleman look at 

her paces. 

Morgan ! — She ain't nothin' else, and I 've got the papers to 

prove it. 
Sired by Chippewa Chief, and twelve hundred dollars won't 

buy her. 



168 PLAY-DAT POEMS. 

Briggs of Tuolumne owned her. Did you know Briggs of 

Tuolumne ? — 
Busted hisself in White Pine, and blew out his brains down 

in 'Frisco. 

Hed n't no savey — hed Briggs. Thar, Jack ! that '11 do — 

quit that foolin' ! 
Nothin' to what she kin do, when she "s got her work cut 

out before her. 
Hosses is hosses, you know, and likewise, too, jockeys is 

jockeys ; 
And 't ain't ev'ry man as can ride as knows what a hoss has 

got in him. 

Know the old ford on the Fork, that nearly got Flannigan's 

leaders ? 
Nasty in daylight, you bet, and a mighty rough ford in low 

water ! 
Well, it ain't six weeks ago that me and the Jedge, and his 

nevey, 
Struck for that ford in the night, in the rain, and the water 

all round us ; 

Up to our flanks in the gulch, and Rattlesnake creek just a 

bilin', 
Not a plank left in the dam, and nary a bridge on the river. 
I had the gray, and the Jedge had his roan, and his nevy, 

Chiquita ; 
And after us trundled the rocks jest loosed from the top of 

the canon. 

Lickity, lickity, switch, we came to the ford, and Chiquita 
Buckled right down to her work, and afore I could yell to 

her rider, 
Took water jest at the ford, and there was the Jedge and 

me standing, 
And twelve hundred dollars of hoss-flesh afloat and a-driftin' 

to thunder! 



THE STETHOSCOPE SONG. \ G9 

Would ye b'lieve it, that night, that hoss — that ar' filly— 

Chiquita, 
Walked herself into her stall, and stood there, all quiet and 

dripping ! 
Clean as a beaver or rat, with nary a buckle of harness, 
Just as she swam the Fork — that hoss, that ar' filly, Chiquita. 

That 's what I call a hoss! and — what did you say? — Oh, 

the nevey ? 
Drowned, I reckon — leastways, he never kem back to deny it. 
Ye see the derned fool had no seat — ye could n't have made 

him a rider ; 
And then, ye know, boys will be boys, and hosses — well, 

hosses is hosses ! 

Bret Harte. 

Cfje Stetfjogcope Song. 

There was a young man in Boston town, 
He bought him a Stethoscope nice and new, 

All mounted and finished and polished down, 
With an ivory cap and stopper too. 

It happened a spider within did crawl, 

And spun a web of ample size, 
Wherein there chanced one day to fall 

A couple of very imprudent flies. 

The first was a bottle-fly, big and blue, 

The second was smaller, and thin and long ; 

So there was a concert between the two, 
Like an octave flute and a tavern gong. 

Now being from Paris but recently, 

This fine young man would show his skill ; 

And so they gave him, his hand to try, 
A hospital patient extremely ill. 

15 



I V PLA YD A Y POEMS. 

Some said that his liver was short of bile, 
And some that his heart was over size, 

While some kept arguing all the while 

He was crammed with tubercles up to his eyes. 

This fine young man then up stepped he, 
And all the doctors made a pause ; 

Said he, — The man must die, you see, 
By the fifty-seventh of Louis's laws. 

But since the case is a desperate one, 
To explore his chest it may be well ; 

For if he should die and it were not done, 
You know the autopsy would not tell. 

Then out his stethoscope he took. 

And on it placed his curious ear; 
Mon Dieu ! said he, with a knowing look, 

Why here is a sound that 's mighty queer ! 

The bourdonnement is very clear, 

Amphoric buzzing, as I 'm alive ! 
Five doctors took their turn to hear ; 

Amphoric buzzing, said all the five. 

There 's empyema beyond a doubt ; 

We '11 plunge a trocar in his side. — 
The diagnosis was made out, 

They tapped the patient ; so he died. 

Now such as hate new-fashioned toys 

Began to look extremely glum ; 
They said that rattles were made for boys, 

And vowed that his buzzing was all a hum. 

There was an old lady had long been sick, 
And what was the matter none did know: 



THE STETHOSCOPE SONG. 171 

Her pulse was slow, though her tongue was quick : 
To her this knowing youth must go. 

So there the nice old lady sat, 

With phials and boxes all in a row ; 
She asked the young doctor what he was at, 

To thump her and tumble her ruffles so. 

Now, when the stethoscope came out, 

The flies began to buzz and whiz ; — 
ho ! the matter is clear, no doubt ; 

An aneurism there plainly is. 

The bruit de rape and the bruit de scie 
And the bruit de diable are all combined; 

How happy Bouillaud would be, 
If he a case like this could find ! 

Now, when the neighboring doctors found 

A case so rare had been descried, 
They every day her ribs did pound 

In squads of twenty ; so she died. 

Then six young damsels, slight and frail, 
Received this kind young doctor's cares ; 

They all were getting slim and pale, 

And short of breath on mounting stairs. 

They all made rhymes with " sighs " and " skies," 
And loathed their puddings and buttered rolls, 

And dieted, much to their friends' surprise, 
On pickles and pencils and chalk and coals. 

So fast their little hearts did bound, 

The frightened insects buzzed the more ; 

So over all their chests he found 
The rale sifflant, and rale sonore. 



172 PL A T-DA T P OEMS. 

He shook his head; — there 's grave disease, — 

I greatly fear you all .must die ; 
A slight post-mortem, if you please, 

Surviving friends would gratify. 

The six young damsels wept aloud, 
Which so prevailed on six young men, 

That each his honest love avowed, 
Whereat they all got well again. 

The poor young man was all aghast ; 

The price of stethoscopes came down ; 
And so he was reduced at last 

To practice in a country town. 

The doctors being very sore, 

A stethoscope they did devise, 
That had a rammer to clear the bore, 

With a knob at the end to kill the flies. 

Now use your ears, all you that can, 
But don't forget to mind your eyes, 

Or you may be cheated, like this young man, 
By a couple of silly, abnormal flies. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

$e Uage of j)e fcSiocrtjpecfcote. 

PICUS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 

whither goest thou, pale student, 

Into the woods so fur ? 
Art on the chokesome cherry bent ? 

Dost seek the chestnut burr ? 

pale student. 

it is not for the mellow chestnut, 
That I so far am come, 



YE LAYE OF YE WOODPECKORK 173 

Nor yet for puckery cherries, t)ut 
For Cypripedium. 

A blossom hangs the choke-cherry, 

And eke the chestnut burr, 
And thou a silly fowl must be, 

Thou red-head wood-pecker. 

PICDS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 

Turn back, turn back, thou pale student, 

Nor in the forest go ; 
There lurks beneath his bosky tent, 

The deadly mosquito, 

And there the wooden-chuck doth tread, 

And from the oak-tree's top 
The red, red squirrels on thy head, 

The frequent acorn drop. 

PALE STUDENT. 

The wooden-chuck is next of kin 

Unto the wood-pecker : 
I fear not thy ill-boding din, 

And why should I fear her ? 

What though a score of acorns drop, 

And squirrels' fur be red ! 
'T is not so ruddy as thy top — 

So scarlet as thy head. 

rarely blooms the Cypripe- 

Dium upon its stalk ; 
And like a torch it shines to me 

Adown the dark wood-walk. 

joy to pluck it from the ground, 
To view the purple sac, 



1 7 4 PLA Y-DA Y POEMS. 

To touch the sessile stigma's round — 
And shall I then turn back ? 

PICUS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 

black and shining is the bog 
That feeds the sumptuous weed, 

Nor stone is found nor bedded log 
Where foot may well proceed. 

. Midmost it glimmers in the mire, 
Like Jack o' Lanthorn's spark, 
Lighting with phosphorescent fire 
The green umbrageous dark. 

There while thy thirsty glances drink 
The fair and baneful plant, 

Thy shoon within the ooze shall sink, 
And eke thine either pant. 

PALE STUDENT. 

G-ive o'er, give o'er, thou wood-peckore ; 

The bark upon the tree 
Thou, at thy will, mayst peck and bore, 

But peck and bore not me. 

Full two long hours I 've searched about, 
And 't would in sooth be rum, 

If I should now go back without 
The Cypripedium. 

PICUS ERYTHROCEPHALUS. 

Farewell! farewell! But this I tell 
To thee, thou pale student, 

Ere dews have fell, thou 'It rue it well, 
That woodward thou didst went : 



YE LATE OF YE WOODPECKOUE. 175 

Then whilst thou blows the drooping nose 

And wip'st the pensive eye — 
There where the sad Symplocarpus fcetidus grows, 

Then think— think of I ! 

Loud flouted there that student wight 

Swich warnynge for to hear : — 
: I scorn, old hen, thy threats of might, 

And eke thy ill grammere. 

Go peck the lice (or green or red) 

That swarm the bass-wood tree, 
But wag no more thine addled head, 

Nor clack thy tongue at me." 

The wood-peck turned to whet her beak, 

The student heard her drum, 
As through the wood he went to seek 

The Cypripedium. 

Alas! and for that pale student 

The evening bell did ring, 
And down the walk the Freshmen went, 

Unto the prayer-meeting. 

Upon the fence loud rose the song, 

The weak, weak tea was o'er — 
Ha ! who is he that sneaks along 

Into South Middle's door ? 

The mud was on his shoon, and ! 

The briar was in his thumb, 
His staff was in his hand, but no — 

No Cypripedium. 

Henry A. Bkers. 



176 PL A YD AY P OEMS. 

Co tije Cootfjacje. 

My curse upon thy venom' d stang, 
That shoots my tortur'd gums alang; 
And thro' my lugs gies mony a twang, 

Wi' gnawing vengeance ; 
Tearing my nerves wi' bitter pang, 

Like racking engines ! 

When fever burns or ague freezes, 
Eheumatics gnaw, or cholic squeezes, 
Our neighbors' sympathy may ease us, 

Wi' pitying moan ; 
But thee, thou hell o' a' diseases, 

Aye mocks our groan ! 

Adown my beard the slavers trickle ! 
I kick the wee stools o'er the mickle, 
As round the fire the giglets keckle, 

To see me loup ; 
While, raving mad, I wish a heckle 

Were in their doup. 

0' a' the num'rous human dools, 

111 har'sts, daft bargains, cutty-stools, 

Or worthy friends rak'd i' the mools, 

Sad sight to see ! 
The tricks o' knaves, or fash o' fools, 

Thou bear'st the gree. 

Where'er that place be priests ca' hell, 
Whence a' the tones o' mis'ry yell, 
And ranked plagues their numbers tell, 

In dreadfu' raw, 
Thou, Toothache, surely bear'st the bell, 

Amang them a' ; 



A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOB. BOW-LEGS. 177 

thou grim mischief-making chiel, 
That gars the notes of discord squeel, 
'Till daft mankind aft dance a reel 

In gore a shoe-thick ; — 
Grie a' the faes o' Scotland's weal 

A towmond's Toothache ! 

Eobert Burns. 



& Sailor's &polcgg foe Boto-Uegs. 

There 's some is born with their straight legs by natur — 

And some is born with bow-legs from the first — 

And some that should have grow'd a good deal straighter, 

But they were badly nurs'd, 
And set, you see, like Bacchus, with their pegs 

Astride of casks and kegs : 
I 've got myself a sort of bow to larboard, 

And starboard, 
And this is what it was that warp'd my legs. 

'T was all along of Poll, as I may say, 
That foul'd my cable when I ought to slip ; 

But on the tenth of May, 

When I gets under weigh, 
Down there in Hertfordshire, to join my ship, 

I sees the mail 

GTet under sail, 
The only one there was to make the trip. 

Well — I gives chase, 

But as she run 

Two knots to one, 
There war n't no use in keeping on the race ! 
Well — casting round about, what next to try on, 

And how to spin, 
15* 



178 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

I spies an ensign with a Bloody Lion, 
And bears away to leeward for the inn, 

Beats round the gable, 
And fetches up before the coach-horse stable : 
"Well — there they stand, four kickers in a row, 

And so 
I just makes free to cut a brown 'un's cable. 
But riding is n't in a seaman's natur — 
So I whips out a toughish end of yarn, 
And gets a kind of sort of a land-waiter, 

To splice me, heel to heel, 

Under the she-mare's keel, 
And off I goes, and leaves the inn a-starn ! 

My eyes ! how she did pitch ! 
And would n't keep her own to go in no line, 
Tho' I kept bowsing, bowsing at her bow-line, 
But always making lee-way to the ditch, 
And yaw'd her head about all sorts of ways. 

The devil sink the craft I 
And was n't she trimendous slack in stays ! 
We could n't no how, keep the inn abaft. 

"Well — I suppose 
We had n't run a knot — or much beyond — 
( What will you have on it ? ) — but off she goes, 
Up to her bends in a fresh-water pond ! 

There I am ! — all a-back ! 
So I looks forward for her bridle-gears. 
To heave her head round on the t' other tack ; 

But when I starts, 

The leather parts. 
And goes away right over by the ears ! 

"What could a fellow do, 
Whose legs like mine, you know, were in the bilboes. 



A SAILOR'S APOLOGY FOR BOW-LEGS. 179 

But trim myself upright for bringing to, 

And square his yard-arms, and brace up his elbows, 

In rig all snug and clever, 
Just while his craft was taking in her water ? 
I did n't like my berth tho', howsomdever, 
Because the yarn, you see, kept getting tauter, — 
Says I — I wish this job was rather shorter ! 

The chase had gain'd a mile 
Ahead, and still the she-mare stood a-drinking : 

Now, all the while 
Her body did n't take of course to shrinking. 
Says I, she 's letting out her reefs, I 'm thinking — 

And so she swell'd, and swell'd, 

And yet the tackle held, 
Till both my legs began to bend like winking. 
My eyes! but she took in enough to founder! 
And there 's my timbers straining every bit, 

Ready to split, 
And her tarnation hull a-growing rounder ! 

Well, there — off Hartford Ness, 
We lay both lash'd and water-logg'd together, 

And can't contrive a signal of distress ; 
Thinks I, we must ride out this here foul weather, 
Tho' sick of riding out — and nothing less ; 
When, looking round, I sees a man a-starn : 
Hollo ! says I, come underneath her quarter ! — 
And hands him out my knife to cut the yarn. 
So I gets off, and lands upon the road, 
And leaves the she-mare to her own consarn, 

A-standing by the water. 
If I get on another, I '11 be blow'd ! — 
And that 's the way, you see, my legs got bow'd ! 

Thomas Hood. 



180 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

ISanteg Runtime. 

One night came on a hurricane, the sea was mountains 

rolling, 
When Barney Buntline turn'd his quid, and said to Billy 

Bowling : 
A strong sou'wester 's blowing, Bill, can't you hear it 

roar now ? 
God help 'em, how I pities all unhappy folks ashore, now. 

Fool-hardy chaps as lives in towns, wlaat danger they are 
all in! 

And now they 're quaking in their beds for fear the roof 
should fall in. 

Poor creatures, how they envies us, and wishes, I 've a no- 
tion, 

For our good luck in such a storm to be upon the ocean. 

Then as to them kept out all day on bus'ness from their 

houses, 
And, late at night, are walking home to cheer their babes 

and spouses, 
While you and I upon the deck are comfortably lying, 
My eye, what tiles and chimbley-pots about their heads are 

flying ! 

And often have we seamen heard how men are killed and 

undone 
By overturns in carriages, and thieves, and fires, in London ; 
We 've heard what risks all landsmen run, from noblemen 

to tailors, 
So Bill, let us thank Providence that } r ou and I are sailors. 

William Pitt, R.X. 

" Come, collar this bad man — 

Around the throat he knotted me 



PHRENOLOGY. 181 

Till I to choke began — 

In point of fact, gar ro ted me ! " 

So spake Sir Herbert White 

To James, Policeman thirty-two — 

All ruffled with his fight 

Sir Herbert was, and dirty too. 

Policeman nothing said 

(Though he had much to say on it), 
But from the bad man's head 

He took the cap that lay on it. 

" No, great Sir Herbert White — 
Impossible to take him up. 
This man' is honest quite — 

Wherever did you rake him up ? 

" For Burglars, Thieves, and Co., 
Indeed I 'm no apologist, 
But I, some years ago, 
Assisted a Phrenologist. 

" Observe his various bumps, 
His head as I uncover it ; 
His morals lie in lumps 

All round about and over it." 

" Now take him," said Sir White, 
" Or you will soon be rueing it ; 
Bless me 1 I must be right, — 
I caught the fellow doing it ! " 

. 
Policeman calmly smiled, 
" Indeed you are mistaken, sir, 
You 're agitated — riled — 
And very badly shaken, sir. 
1G 



182 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

" Sit down, and I '11 explain 
My system of Phrenology, 
A second, please, remain " — 
(A second is horology). 

Policeman left his beat-*- 

(The Bart., no longer fnrions, 

Sat down upon a seat, 

Observing, " This is curious ! ") 

" Oh, surely, here are signs 
Should soften your rigidity, 
This gentleman combines 
Politeness with timidity. 

" Of shyness here 's a lump — 
A hole for animosity — 
And like my fist his bump 
Of impecuniosity. 

"Oust here the bump appears 
Of Innocent Hilarity, 
And just behind his ears 

Are Faith, and Hope, and Charity. 

" He of true Christian ways 

As bright example sent us is — 
This maxim he obeys, 
' Sorte tua contentus sis.' 

" There, let him go his ways, 

He needs no stern admonishing." 
The Bart., in blank amaze, 

Exclaimed, " This is astonishing ! 

" I must have made a mull, 

This mat.er I 've been blind in it: 



THE TREADMILL SONG. 183 

Examine, please, my skull, 

And tell me what you find in it," 

That Crusher looked, and said 
With unimpaired urbanity, 
"Sir Herbert, you 've a head 
That teems with inhumanity. 

" Here 's Murder, Envy, Strife, 
(Propensitjr to kill any) 
And Lies as large as life, 

And heaps of Social Villainy. 

" Here 's Love of Bran New Clothes, 
Embezzling — Arson — Deism — 
A taste for Slang and Oaths, 
And Fraudulent Trusteeism. 

" Here 's Love of Groundless Charge — 
Here 's Malice, too, and Trickery, 
Unusually large 

Your bump of Pocket-Pickery." 

"Stop! " said the Bart., "my cup 

Is full — I 'm worse than him in all — > 
Policeman take me up — 

No doubt I am the criminal ! " 

That Pleeceman's scorn grew large 

(Phrenology had nettled it), 
He took that Bart, in charge — 

I don't know how they settled it. 

William S. G-ilbkrt. 

Cf)e CreatimiU £ong. 

The stars are rolling in the sky, 
The earth rolls on below, 






1 84 PL A T-DA Y P OEMS. 

And we can feel the rattling wheel 

Revolving as we go. 
Then tread away, my gallant boys, 

And make the axle fly ; 
Why should not wheels go round about, 

Like planets in the sky ? 

Wake up, wake up, my duck-legged man, 

And stir your solid pegs ! 
Arouse, arouse, my gawky friend, 

And shake your spider legs ; 
What though you 're awkward at the trade, 

There 's time enough to learn, — 
So lean upon the rail, my lad, 

And take another turn. 

They 've built, us up a noble wall, 

To keep the vulgar out ; 
We 've nothing in the world to do, 

But just to walk about ; 
So faster, now, you middle men, 

And try to beat the ends, — 
It 's pleasant work to ramble round 

Among one's honest friends. 

Here, tread upon the long man's toes, 

He sha' n't be lazy here, — 
And punch the little fellow's ribs, 

And tweak that lubber's ear, — 
He 's lost them both, — don't pull his hair, 

Because he wears a scratch, 
But poke him in the further eye, 

That is n't in the patch. 

Hark ! fellows, there 's the supper-bell, 
And so our work is done ; 



A VIRTUOSO. 185 

It 's pretty sport, — suppose we take 

A round or two for fun ! 
If ever they should turn me out, 

When I have better grown, 
Now hang me, but I mean to have 

A treadmill of my own ! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

& Uittuoso. 

Be seated, pray. " A grave appeal " ? 

The sufferers by the war, of course. 
Ah, what a sight for us who feel — 

This monstrous melodrame of Force ! 
We, sir, we connoisseurs, should know, 

On whom its heaviest burden falls ; — 
Collections shattered at a blow. 

Museums turned to hospitals ! 

" And worse," you say ; " the wide distress ! " 

Alas ! 't is true distress exists ; 
Though, let me add, our worthy Press 

Have no mean skill as colorists. 
Speaking of color, next your seat 

There hangs a sketch from Vernet's hand — 
Some Moscow fancy, incomplete, 

Yet not indifferently planned. 

Note specially the gray old guard, 

Who tears his tattered coat to wrap 
A closer bandage round the scarred 

And frozen comrade in his lap. 
But, as regards the present war — 

Now don't you think our pride of pence 
Goes — may I say it ? somewhat far 

For objects of benevolence ? 



18G PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

You hesitate. For my part, I — 

Though ranking Paris next to Rome, 
^Esthetically, — still reply 

That charity begins at home. 
The words remind me. Did you catch 

My so-named Hunt ? The girl 's a gem ; 
And look how those lean rascals snatch 

The pile of scraps she brings to them. 

" But 3*our appeal 's for home."' you say. 
•' For home and English poor." Indeed! 
I thought Philanthropy to-day- 
Was blind to mere domestic need, 
However sore. Yet, though one grants 

That home should have the foremost claims, 
At least these continental wants 
Assume intelligible names ; 

While here with us — ah! who could hope 

To verify the varied pleas, 
Or from his private means to cope 

With all our shrill necessities ? 
Impossible ! One might as well 
" Attempt comparison of creeds, 
Or fill that huge Malayan shell 

With these half-dozen Indian beads. 

Moreover, add that every one 

So well exalts his pet distress. 
'T is, Give to all or give to none, 

If you 'd avoid invidiousness. 
Your case, I feel, is sad as A's ; 

The same applies to B's and C's ; 
By my selection I should raise 

An alphabet of rivalries. 






OWD PJXDE1L 18' 

And life is short, — I see you look 

At yonder dish, a priceless bit ; 
You '11 find it etched in Jacquemart's book ; 

They say that Raphael painted it, — 
And life is short, you understand ; 

So, if I only hold you out 
An open though an empty hand, 

Why, you 'd forgive me, I 've no doubt. 

Nay, do not rise. You seem amused ; 

One can but be consistent, sir. 
'T was on these grounds I just refused 

Some gushing lady-almoner, — 
Believe me, on these very grounds. 

Good-bye, then. Ah, a rarity ! 
That cost ine quite three hundred pounds, 

That Diirer figure, '' Charity." 

Austin Dob son. 



LANCASHIRE DTALECT 

Owd Pinder were a rackless foo, 

An' spent his days i' spreein', 
At th' end of every drinkin'-do 

He 're sure to crack; o' deein' — 
" G-o, sell my rags, an' sell my shoon 

Aw 's never live to trail 'em ; 
My ballis-pipes are eawt o' tune, 

An' th' wynt begins to fail 'em ! 

" Eawr Matty 's very fresh an' yung- 

'T would ony mon bewilder ; 

Hoo '11 wed again afore it 's lung, 

For th' lass is fond o' childer ; 



188 PL A YDAY P OEMS. 

My bit o' brass '11 fly, yo'n see, 

When th' coffin-lid has screened me; 

It gwos again my pluck to dee, 
An' lev her wick beheend me. 

" Come, Matty, come an' cool my yed, 
Aw 'm finished, to my thinkin'. " 
Hoo happed him nicely up, an' said, 
" Thae 's brought it on wi' drinkin'." 
"Nay, nay," said he, " my fuddle 's done; 
We 're partin' t' one fro' t' other ; 
So promise me that when aw 'm gwon, 
Thea '11 never wed another." 

" Th' owd tale," said hoo, an' laft her stoo, 
"It 's ray ley past believin' ; 
Thee think o' th' world thea 'rt goin' to, 

An' leave this world to th' livin'. 
What use to me can deead folk be ? 

Thae 's kilt thisel' wi' spreein' ; 
An iv that 's o' thae wants wi' me, 

Get forrud wi' thi deein' ! " 

He scrat his yed, he rubbed his e'e, 
An' then he donned his breeches; 
"Eawr Matty gets as fause," said he, 
" As one o' Pendle witches ; 
Iv ever aw 'm to muster wit, 

It mun be now or never ; 
Aw think aw '11 try to live a bit, 
It would n't do to lev her! " 

Edwin Waugh. 

Men dying make their wills ; but wives 

Escape a work so sad. 
Why should they make what all their lives 
The gentle dames have had ? 

John Godfrey Saxe. 



A DTJIGE. 189 

& Dirge. 

CONCERNING THE LATE LAMENTED KING OF THE 
CANNIBAL ISLANDS. 

And so our royal relative is dead ! 

And so he rests from gustatory labors ! 
The white man was his choice, but when he fed 

He 'd sometimes entertain his tawny neighbors. 
He worshiped, as he said, his " Fe-fo-fum," 
The goddess of the epigastrium. 

And missionaries graced his festive board, 
Solemn and succulent, in twos and dozens, 

And smoked before their hospitable lord, 

Welcome as if they 'd been his second cousins. 

When cold, he warmed them as he would his kin — 

They came as strangers, and he took them in. 

And generous ! — oh, was n't he ? I have known him 

Exhibit a celestial amiability : — 
He 'd eat an enemy, and then would own him 

Of flavor excellent, despite hostility. 
The cruelest captain of the Turkish navy 
He buried in an honorable grav — y. 

He had a hundred wives. To make things pleasant 
They found it quite judicious to adore him ; — 

And when he dined, the nymphs were always present — 
Sometimes beside him and sometimes — before him. 

When he was tired of one, he called her "sweet," 

And told her she was "good enough to eat." 

He was a man of taste — and justice, too ; 

He oped his mouth for e'en the humblest sinner, 
And three weeks stall-fed an emaciate Jew 

Before they brought him to the royal dinner. 
, 16* 



1 90 PLA Y-DA Y POEMS. 

With preacher-men he shared his board and wallet 
And let them nightly occupy his palate ! 

We grow like what we eat. Bad food depresses ; 

Good food exalts us like an inspiration, 
And missionary on the menu blesses 

And elevates the Feejee population. 
A people who for years, saints, bairns, and women ate 
Must soon their vilest qualities eliminate. 

But the deceased could never hold a candle 
To those prim, pale-faced people of propriety 

Who gloat o'er gossip and get fat on scandal — 
The cannibals of civilized society ; 

They drink the blood of brothers with their rations, 

And crunch the bones of living reputations. 

They kill the soul; he only claimed the dwelling. 

They take the sharpened scalpel of surmises 
And cleave the sinews when the heart is swelling, 

And slaughter Fame and Honor for their prizes. 
They make the spirit in the body quiver ; 
They quench the Light ! He only took the — Liver ! 

I 've known some hardened customers, I wot, 
A few tough fellows — pagans beyond question — 

I wish had got into his dinner-pot ; 

Although I 'm certain they 'd defy digestion, 

And break his jaw, and ruin his esophagus, 

Were he the chief of beings anthropophagous ! 

How fond he was of children ! To his breast 
The tenderest nurslings gained a free admission. 

Rank he despised, nor, if they came well dressed, 
Cared if they were plebeian or patrician. 

Shade of Leigh Hunt! Oh, guide this laggard pen 

To write of one who loved his fellow men ! 

. William A. Crofkut. 



A THRENODY. 101 

The Akhoond of Swat is dead.— London Papers of January 23, 1878. 

What, what, what, 

What 's the news from Swat ? 
Sad news, 
Bad news 

Cometh by the cable led 

Through the Indian Ocean's bed, 

Through the Persian Gulf, the Red 
Sea and the Med- 
iterranean — he 's dead — 
The Akhoond is dead! 

For the Akhoond I mourn. 
Who would n't ? 
He strove to disregard the message stern, 
But he Akhoond 't. 

Dead, dead, dead ; 

(Sorrow, Swats ! ) 
Swats wha hae wi' Akhoond bled, 
Swats wham he hath often led 
Onward to a gory bed, 

Or to victory, 

As the case might be, — 
Sorrow, Swats ! 

Tears shed, 
Shed tears like water, 

Your great Akhoond is dead ! 
That 's Swat 's the matter ! 

Mourn city of Swat, 

Your great Akhoond is not, 

But laid 'mid worms to rot, — 

His mortal part alone, his soul was caught 



192 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

(Because lie was a good Akhoond !) 

Up to the bosom of Mahound. 
Though earthly walls his frame surround 
(Forever hallowed be the ground!) 
And skeptics mock the lowly mound 
And say " He 's now of no Akhoond! " 

His soul is in the skies — 
The azure skies that bend above his loved metropolis 
of Swat, 

He sees, with larger, other eyes, 

Athwart all earthly mysteries — 
He knows what 's Swat. 

Let Swat bury the great Akhoond 

With a noise of mourning and of lamentation ! 
Let Swat bury the great Akhoond 

With the noise of the mourning of the Swattisli 
nation ! 
Fallen is at length 
Its tower of strength, 
Its sun is dimmed ere it had nooned, 
Dead lies the great Akhoond, 
The great Akhoond of Swat 
Is not ! 

GrEORGE T. LaXIGAN. 

destination. 

BY MY LATE LATIN TUTOR. 

In cadent ire the solar splendor flames ; 
The f oles, languescent, pend from arid rames ; 
His humid front the cive, anheling, wipes, 
And dreams of erring on ventiferous ripes. 

How dulce to vive occult to mortal eyes, 
Dorm on the herb with none to supervise. 



NINETY-NINE IN THE SHADE. 193 

Carp the suave berries from the crescent vine, 
And bibe the flow from longicaudate kine ! 

To me alas! no verdurous visions come, 
Save yon exiguous pool's conferva-scum, — 
No concave vast repeats the tender hue 
That laves my milk-jug with celestial blue ! 

Me wretched ! Let me curr to quercine shades I 
Effund your albid hausts, lactiferous maids ! 
0, might I vole to some umbrageous clump,— 
Depart, — be off, — excede, — evade, — erump ! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



i&metg-iRme tit tfje ifcjatfe, 

for a lodge in a garden of cucumbers ! 

for an iceberg or two at control ! 
for a vale which at mid-day the dew cumbers ! 

for a pleasure-trip up to the pole ! 

for a little one-story thermometer, 
With nothing but zeroes all ranged in a row ! 

for a big double-barreled hygrometer, 

To measure this moisture that rolls from my brow ! 

that this cold world were twenty times colder I 
(That 's irony red-hot it seemeth to me) ; 

for a turn of its dreaded cold shoulder ! 
what a comfort an ague would be ! 

for a grotto frost-lined and rill-riven, 
Scooped in the rock under cataract vast I 

for a winter of discontent even ! 
for wet blankets judiciously cast ! 
17 



194 PL A T-DAY P OEMS. 

for a soda-fount spouting up boldly 

From every hot lamp-post against the hot sky ! 

for proud maiden to look on me coldly, 
Freezing my soul with a glance of her eye ! 

Then for a draught from a cup of cold pizen, 
And for a resting-place in the cold grave ! 

With a bath in the Styx where the thick shadow lies on 
And deepens the chill of its dark-running wave. 

Eossiter Johnson. 



Ztxo in tfje Sun. 

As rail-tracks shorten in the cold, 

By nature's great metallic law, 
So shrinks the man of iron mould, 

When these rude winds their weapons draw 
These " eager airs " of icy breath, 

Whose myriad poniards, piercing, chilling, 
Seem dealing back a vengeful death, 

For cuts of that proverbial shilling. 

The fuel-vendors thank their stars 

That Lehigh higher yet must go ; 
And babies cuddle close to Mars, 

Because the Mercury is low ; 
And Sunday at the twilight hour, 

Once lit by tinder flames of Venus, 
My flame bewails, with visage sour, 

The coldness that has come between us. 

I 'd fly to her, I 'd break the ice 

By axing like an honest man ; 
But breaking ice is not so nice 

When it means, Fanny, be my Fan ! 






ODE FOR A SOCIAL MEETING. 195 

When ghosts of frozen smiles benumb 

The loving lips that shiver bluely ; 
And when the cool reply may come : 
" Ask pa," and pa is Mr. Cooley. 

I '11 don my double-worsted hose ; 

I '11 pile the grate with embers bright ; 
I '11 read my Burns, and toast my toes, 

And sing the songs the skalds indite ; 
Or hie me to some fur-rin shore — 

Fire Island, or a land of geysers, 
Or Hottentots, or hellebore — 

To check my chattering incisors : 

Drink ginger-tea as pudding thick, 

Compounded in a red-hot can, 
Stirred with a fire-wood toddy-stick, 

And ladled with a warming-pan — 
Unless some friendly foe, instead, 

Will hold me over Etna's crater, 
Heap coals of fire upon my head, 

And drop me like a hot potater. 

Eossiter Johnson. 

<©fie for a Social fflltttinq. 

WITH SLIGHT ALTERATIONS BY A TEETOTALER. 

Come ! fill a fresh bumper, — for why should we go 

logwood 
While the nectar still reddens our cups as they flow ? 

decoction 
Pour out the rioh juicc c still bright with the sun, 

dye-stuff 
Till o'er the brimmed crystal the rubies shall run. 

half-ripened apples 
The purple ' globed cluotCF g their life-dews have bled ; 

taste sugar of lead 

How sweet is the bpooth of the fc -fc granco - feoj - ckod I 



PLAY-DAY POEMS. 



rank poisons wines 

For summer's lac - u rooeo lie hid in the 



stable-boys smoking long-nines 
That were garnered by maidsria who laughed through the 



scowl bowl scoff sneer 

Then a smilo , and a gl s Gci , and a toaet , and a ohcor , 
strychnine and whisky, and ratsbane and beer 

For y.U the good ".vIao, and t i g 'yc oomo of it horo! 

In cellar, in pantry, in attic, in hall, 

Down, down with the tyrant that masters us all ! 
Long liro tho gay ocrrant that laughj for uo all ! 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 

W$z IStiitor'js SHootng. 

We love thee, Ann Maria Smith, 

And in thy condescension, 
We see a future full of joys 

Too numerous to mention. 

There 's Cupid's arrow in thy glance, 

That by thy love's coercion 
Has reached our melting heart of hearts, 

And asked for one insertion. 

With joy we feel the blissful smart, 

And ere our passion ranges, 
We«freely place thy love upon 

The list of our exchanges. 

There 's music in thy lowest tone, 

And silver in thy laughter : 
And truth — but we will give the full 

Particulars hereafter. 

Oh ! we could tell thee of our plans 
All obstacles to scatter : 






INVOCATION TO SPRING. 197 

But we are full just now, and have 
A press of other matter. 

Then let us marry, Queen of Smiths, 

Without more hesitation ; 
The very thought doth give our blood 

A larger circulation ! 

Robert H. Newell. 



JEnbocatum to Sptmg, 

BY A LAWYER. 

Whereas, on certain boughs and sprays 
Now divers birds are heard to sing, 

And sundry flowers their heads upraise, 
Hail to the coming on of Spring ! 

The songs of those said birds arouse 
The memory of our youthful hours, 

As green as those said sprays and boughs, 
As fresh and sweet as those said flowers. 

The birds aforesaid — happy pairs — 

Love, 'mid the aforesaid boughs, inshrines 

In freehold nests ; themselves, their heirs, 
Administrators, and assigns. 

busiest term of Cupid's Court, 

Where tender plaintiffs actions bring, 

Season of frolic and of sport, 

Hail, as aforesaid, coming Spring! 

H. P. H. Brownell. 



198 PL A Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

<£bem'ng. 

BY A TAILOR. 

Day hath put on his jacket, and around 
His burning bosom buttoned it with stars. 
Here will I lay me on the velvet grass, 
That is like padding to earth's meagre ribs, 
And hold communion with the things about me. 
Ah me ! how lovely is the golden braid 
That binds the skirt of night's descending robe ! 
The thin leaves, quivering on their silken threads, 
Do make a music like to rustling satin, 
As the light breezes smooth their downy nap. 

Ha ! what is this that rises to my touch, 
So like a cushion ? Can it be a cabbage ? 
It is, it is that deeply injured flower, 
Which boys do flout us with ; — but yet I love thee, 
Thou giant rose, wrapped in a green surtout. 
Doubtless in Eden thou didst blush as bright 
As these, thy puny brethren ; and thy breath 
Sweetened the fragrance of her spicy air ; 
But now thou seemest like a bankrupt beau, 
Stripped of his gaudy hues and essences, 
And growing portly in his sober garments. 

Is that a swan that rides upon the water ? 

no, it is that other gentle bird, 
Which is the patron of our noble calling. 

1 well remember, in my early years, 

When these young hands first closed upon a goose ; 

I have a scar upon my thimble finger, 

Winch chronicles the hour of young ambition. 

My father was a tailor, and his father, 

And my sire's grandsire, all of them were tailors j 



THE SCHOOLMASTER ABROAD WITH HIS SON. 199 

They had an ancient goose, — it was an heir-loom 

From some remoter tailor of our race. 

It happened I did s^e it on a time 

When none was near, and I did deal with it, 

And it did burn me, — 0, most fearfully ! 

It is a joy to straighten out one's limbs, 
And leap elastic from the level counter, 
Leaving the petty grievances of earth, 
The breaking thread, the din of clashing shears, 
And all the needles that do wound the spirit, 
For such a pensive hour of soothing silence. 
Kind Nature, shuffling in her loose undress, 
Lays bare her shady bosom ; — I can feel 
With all around me ; — I can hail the flowers 
That sprig earth's mantle, — and yon quiet bird, 
That rides the stream, is to me as a brother. 
The vulgar know not all the hidden pockets, 
Where Nature stows away her loveliness. 
But this unnatural posture of the legs 
Cramps my extended calves, and I must go 
Where I can coil them in their wonted fashion. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes. 



2H)e Schoolmaster Efiroa* tot'tl) fjte Son, 

what harper could worthily harp it, 
Mine Edward ! this wide-stretching wold 

(Look out wold) with, its wonderful carpet 
Of emerald, purple, and gold ! 

Look well at it — also look sharp, it 
Is getting so cold. 

The purple is heather (erica) ; 

The yellow, gorse — called sometimes " whin." 



200 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Cruel boys on its prickles might spike a 

Green beetle as if on a pin. 
You may roll in it, if you would like a 

Few holes in your skin. 

You would n't ? Then think of how kind you 
Should be to the insects who crave 

Your compassion — and then, look behind you 
At yon barley-ears ! Don't they look brave 

As they undulate ? — (undulate, mind you, 
From unda, a wave.) 

The noise of those sheep-bells, how faint it 
Sounds here — (on account of our height) ! 

And this hillock itself — who could paint it, 
With its changes of shadow and light ? 

Is it not — (never, Eddy, say " ain't it ") — 
A marvellous sight ? 

Then yon desolate eerie morasses, 
The haunts of the snipe and the hern 

(I shall question the two upper classes 
On aquatiles when we return) — 

Why, I see on them absolute masses 
Oiftlix or fern. 

How it interests e'en a beginner 

(Or tyro) like dear little JSTed ! 
Is he listening? As I am a sinner 

He 's asleep — he is wagging his head. 
Wake up ! I '11 go home to my dinner, 

And you to your bed. 

The boundless ineffable prairie ; 

The splendor of mountain and lake 
With their hues that seem ever to vary ; 

The mighty pine-forests which shake 



TO A PRETTY SCHOOL-MA'AM. 201 

In the wind, and in which the unwary 
May tread on a snake ; 

And this wold with its heathery garment — 

Are themes undeniably great. 
But — although there is not any harm in 't — 

It 's perhaps little good to dilate 
On their charms to a dull little varmint 

Of seven or eight. 

Charles S. Calverley. 

Co a Irettg Scjooklfta'am, 

If only fate would grant, thus late, the one thing I be- 
seech 'er — 

That I might go to school again, and have you for my 
teacher — 

I 'd pick up more of solid lore before a week was ended 

Than ever yet I 've chanced to get at all the schools I 've 
'tended. 

I would n't ask again to bask in childhood's sunlight 

brisker — 
I 'd take my seat just as I am, with coat-tail and with 

whisker, 
And every rule laid down in school should have my strict 

alliance, 
I 'd fairly live on wisdom's bread, and drink of naught but 

science ! 

The irksome path which learning hath would turn to one of 
pleasure, 

And every musty " ology " become a precious treasure ; 

With porous mind, intent to find the truth of your instruc- 
tion, 

I 'd grow a sort of learned sponge — a philosophic suction ! 
17* 



202 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Astronomy would have for me a charm before unheeded, 
When neither chart nor telescope would ever once be needed ; 
I 'd never pore long hours o'er a problem wrong to right it, 
For I would make your face the sky, your eyes the stars 
that light it. 

From botany I 'd quickly cull the very germ and essence, 
And learn to tell the panicle or spadix inflorescence. 
Ah, little need I 'd have indeed of what the book deposes ; 
I 'd take your cheeks for specimens and analyze their roses. 

Conchology would no more be a science dull and prosy ; 
I 'd catch a sight of small teeth white between lips ripe and 

rosy, 
And then for bivalves I would crave, and wonder late and 

early 
If ever in a mollusk yet were hidden pearls so pearly. 

And as for ornithology — the cuckoo, C. canorus, 

Might chirp away the livelong day, I should n't heed his 

chorus; 
Your voice would be enough for me, and with its music 

ringing 
I 'd cease to think the bobolink knew anything of singing. 

Mythology would cease to be an antiquated fable, 
When I could turn, and there discern a Hebe at the table. 
Things pakeontological would live beneath your teaching — 
I 'd even take theology, if you would do the preaching. 

And thus together while we trod through learning's tan- 
gled mazes, 
And caught a peep at science deep amid its countless phases, 
We 'd learn at last by physic's laws, most rigidly enacted, 
How very natural it is that bodies are attracted ! 

Marc E. Cook. 



THE PUGILIST TO HIS SWEETHEART. 203 

Cfje pugilist to i)te Stoeetfjeatt 

Molly, thy capacious mug 
Is one broad belt of smiles ; 
And for thy dexter mauley 
Come suitors many miles ; 
The mantling claret in thy cheek 

Unsteadies all our pins, 
But brilliant will thy skylights shine 
For him the stake who wins. 
Yet what can this avail me, 

If I must vainly sing — 
Dear Moll, put on the gloves with me, 
And come into the ring ? 

The mouse within thy hair is matched 

By one beneath my eye ; 
And thy waterfall befits a mill 
That 's fed with ancient rye. 
There 's power unmeasured stored in what 

The vulgar call a fist ; 
And fame and honor wait on him 
Who takes the golden grist. 

You see, Moll, I mean business ; 

And it would be just the thing, 
If you 'd put on the gloves with me 
And come into the ring. 

gentle Moll, incline thy flap 

For one more round of rhyme : 
Unclose thy sweet potato-trap, 

When the parson calls to time ; 
And when it 's done don't faint away, 

Or weakly holler 'Nough ! 
If you get your neck in chancery, 

'T will only wear a rough. 



204 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

And I shall be as happy 

As Heenan or a king, 
When you 've put on the gloves with me 

And come into the ring. 

Anonymous. 

a ISalla* of WMam. 

lady wake ! — the azure moon 

Is rippling in the verdant skies, 
The owl is warbling his soft tune, 

Awaiting but thy snowy eyes. 
The joys of future years are past, 

To-morrow's hopes have fled away ; 
Still let us love, and e'en at last, 

We shall be happy yesterday. 

The early beam of rosy night 



The huntsman winds his mad guitar. 
Then, lady, wake ! my brigantine 

Pants, neighs, and prances to be free ; 
Till the creation I am thine. 

To some rich desert fly with me. 

Anonymous 

Co a Ifttcf) goung Eaiig, 

BY A MERCENARY LOVER. 

Maiden with the raven locks, 

And the fringed eyes so brown. 
If thy father hath " the rocks." 

Need thy heart be kindred stone ? 
If so, speak ! or by a frown 
Let the dismal fact be known. 






LOVE'S MO ODS AND TENSES. 2 5 

Maiden with the swelling bust, 
Where the heart I covet lies, 
If thy father hath " the dust," 

Do not, by your many wiles, 
Seek to throw it in my eyes, 

Blinding hopes and quenching smiles. 

Thy father's fields I know are broad, 

Whilst my own are " gone to grass." 
By rogues from every rood outlawed, 
My heart 's the only acher left ; 
And now I see by you, a lass ! 
Of even that I '11 soon be reft. 

If thy father hath " the soap," 

Do not wash your hands of me. 
Make it mine, and then I hope 

To scour the country o'er and o'er, 
And keep my reputation free 
From all the stains it ever wore. 

Secured, like thieves, in public stocks, 

Maiden, what a life we '11 lead, 
With that "soap," that "dust," those "rocks" ! 
Oh, hear my prayer, as down I kneel ! 
Give me the hand I so much need, 
And I '11 be true to thee as steel. 

Michael O'Connor. 



tube's Jftoobs attfc Censes. 

Sally Salter, she was a young teacher who taught. 
And her friend Charley Church was a preacher who praught ! 
Though his enemies called him a screecher who scraught. 
16 



206 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

His heart when he saw her kept sinking, and sunk, 
And his eye, meeting hers, began winking and wunk ; 
While she in her turn fell to thinking, and thunk. 

He hastened to woo her, and sweetly he wooed, 
For his love grew until to a mountain it grewed, 
And what he was longing to do then he doed. 

In secret he wanted to speak, and he spoke, 

To seek with his lips what his heart long had soke ; 

So he managed to let the truth leak, and it loke. 

He asked her to ride to the church, and they rode, 

They so sweetly did glide, that they both thought they 

glode, 
And they came to the place to be tied, and were tode. 

Then homeward he said let us drive and they drove, 
And soon as they wished to arrive, they arrove ; 
For whatever he could n't contrive, she controve. 

The kiss he was dying to steal, then he stole : 

At the feet where he wanted to kneel, then he knole, 

And he said " I feel better than ever I fole." 

So they to each other kept clinging, and clung, 
While time his swift circuit was winging, and wung : 
And this was the thing he was bringing, and brung: 

The man Sally wanted to catch, and had caught — 

That she wanted from others to snatch, and had snaught — 

Was the one that she now liked to scratch, and she scraught. 

And Charley's warm love began freezing, and froze, 

While he took to teazing, and cruelly toze 

The girl he had wished to be squeezing, and squoze. 



PADDY BLAKE'S ECHO. 207 

" Wretch ! " he cried, when she threatened to leave him, and 

left, 
" How could you deceive me, as you have deceft? " 
And she answered, "I promised to cleave, and I 've cleft! " 

Anonymous. 

latog maWs IScfjo, 

In the gap of Dunlo 

There 's an echo, or so, 
And some of them echoes is very surprisin' ; 

You '11 think, in a stave 

That I mane to desaive, 
For a ballad 's a thing you expect to find lies in. 

But visible thrue 

In that hill forninst you 
There 's an echo as plain and as safe as the Bank, too ; 

But civilly spake 
" How d' ye do, Paddy Blake ? " 
The echo politely says, " Very well, thank you ! " 

One day Teddy Keogh 

With Kate Conner did go 
To hear from the echo such wondherful talk, sir; 

But the echo, they say, 

Was conthrairy that day, 
Or perhaps Paddy Blake had gone out for a walk, sir. 

So Ted says to Kate, 
" 'T is too hard to be bate 
By that deaf and dumb baste of an echo, so lazy, 

But if we both shout 

At each other, no doubt, 
We '11 make up an echo between us, my daisy ! " 

" Now, Kitty," says Teddy, 
" To answer be ready." 



208 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

"Oh, very well, thank you," cried out Kitty then, sir; 
" Would yo u like to wed, 
Kitty darlin' ? " says Ted. 
" Oh, very well, thank you," says Kitty again, sir. 
" D' ye like me f " says Teddy ; 
And Kitty, quite ready, 
Cried, "Yery well, thank you! " with laughter beguiling 
Now won't you confess, 
Teddy could not do less 
Than pay his respects to the lips that were smiling ? 

Oh, dear Paddy Blake, 

May you never forsake 
Those hills that return us such echoes endearing : 

And, girls, all translate 

The sweet echoes like Kate, 
No faithfulness doubting, no treachery fearing. 

And, boys, be you ready, 

Like frolicsome Teddy, 
Be earnest in loving, though given to joking ; 

And, when thus inclined, 

May all true lovers find 
Sweet echoes to answer from hearts they 're invoking. 

Samuel Lover. 

Babette she was a fisher gal, 

With jupon striped and cap in crimps, 

She passed her days inside the Halle, 
Or collaring of little shrimps. 

Yet she was sweet as flowers in May, 

With no professional bouquet. 



Jacot was, of the customs bold, 
An officer, at gay Boulogne, 



BABETTE' S LOVE 209 

He loved Babette — his love he told 

And sighed, " Oh, soyez vous my own ! " 
But "JSTon! " said she, "Jacot, my pet, 
Yous etes trop scraggy pour Babette. 

" Of one alone I nightly dream, 
An able mariner is he, 

And gayly serves the G-en'ral Steam- 
Boat Navigation Companee, 

I '11 marry him, if he but will — 

His name, I rather think, is Bill. 

" I see him when he 's not aware, 

Upon our hospitable coast, 
Reclining with an easy air, 

Upon the port against a post, 
A thinking of, I '11 dare to say, 
His native Chelsea far away ! 

" Oh, mon! " exclaimed the Customs bold, 

" Mes yeux ! " he said, which means, " my eye," 

" Oh, chere ! " he also cried, I 'm told, 
" Par jove," he added, with a sigh. 

" Oh, mon ! oh, chere ! mes yeux ! par jove ! 
Je n'aime pas cet enticing cove ! " 

The Panther's captain stood hard by, 

He was a man of morals strict ; 
If e'er a sailor winked his eye, 

Straightway he had that sailor licked 
Mast-headed all (such was his code) 
Who dashed or jiggered, blessed or bio wed. 

He wept to think a tar of his 

Should lean so gracefully on posts, 
He sighed and sobbed to think of this, 

On foreign, French, and friendly coasts. 



210 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

" It 's human natur', p'raps — if so, 
Oh ; is n't human natur' low ! " 

He called his Bill, who pulled his curl, 
He said, " My Bill, I understand, 

You 've captivated some young gurl 
On this here French and foreign land. 

Her tender heart your beauties jog — 

They do, you know they do, you dog. 

" You have a graceful way, I learn, 

Of leaning airily on posts, 
By which you 've been and caused to burn 

A tender flame on these here coasts. 
A fisher gurl, I much regret, — 
Her age sixteen — her name Babette. 

" You '11 marry her, you gentle tar — 
Your union I myself will bless; 
And when you matrimonied are, 
I will appoint her stewardess." 
But William hitched himself and sighed, 
And cleared his throat, and thus replied : 

"Not so; unless you 're fond of strife, 
You 'd better mind your own all airs ; 
I have an able-bodied wife 

Awaiting me at Wapping Stairs ; 
If all this here to her I tell, 
She '11 larrup me and you as well. 

" Skin-deep, and valued at a pin, 
Is beauty such as Venus owns — 
Her beauty is beneath her skin, 

And lies in layers on her bones. 
The other sailors of the crew, 
They always call her ' Wapping Sue ! "' 



FAITHLESS SALL Y BRO WK 211 

11 Oho ! " the captain said, " I see ! 

And is she then so very strong? " 
" She 'd take your honor's scruff," said he, 

"And pitch you over to Bolong! " 
" I pardon you," the captain said, 
" The fair Babette you need n't wed." 

Perhaps the Customs had his will, 
And coaxed the scornful girl to wed : 

Perhaps the captain and his Bill 
And William's little wife are dead ; 

Or p'raps they 're all alive and well : 

I cannot, cannot, cannot tell. 

William S. Gilbert. 



dFattijless Sallg Proton. 

Young Ben he was a nice young man, 

A carpenter by trade ; 
And he fell in love with Sally Brown, 

That was a lady's maid. 

But as they fetched a walk one day, 
They met a press-gang crew ; 

And Sally she did faint away, 
Whilst Ben he was brought to. 

The Boatswain swore with wicked words, 

Enough to shock a saint, 
That though she did seem in a fit, 

'T was nothing but a feint. 

"Come, girl," said he, " hold up your head, 
He '11 be as good as me ; 
For when your swain is in our boat, 
A boatswain he will be." 



212 PL A Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

So when they 'd made their game of her, 

And taken off her elf. 
She roused, and found she only was 

A coming to herself. 

" And is he gone, and is he gone ? " 
She cried, and wept outright : 

" Then I will to the water-side, 
And see him out of sight." 

A waterman came up to her, 
"Now, young woman," said he, 
" If you weep on so, you will make 
Eye-water in the sea." 

"Alas! they We taken my beau Ben, 
To sail with old Benbow ; " 
And her woe began to run afresh, 
As if she 'd said, Gee woe ! 

Says he, " They 've only taken him 

To the Tender-ship, you see : " 

" The Tender-ship," cried Sally Brown, 

" What a hard-ship that must be ! 

" Oh ! would I were a mermaid now, 
For then I 'd follow him : 
But oh ! — I 'm not a fish- woman, 
And so I cannot swim. 

" Alas ! I was not born beneath 
The Yirgin and the Scales, 
So I must curse my cruel stars, 
And walk about in Wales." 

Now Ben had sailed to many a place 
That 's underneath the world ; 



FAITHLESS NELL Y GRA T. 213 

But in two years the ship came home, 
And all her sails were furled. • 

But when he called on Sally Brown, 

To see how she got on, 
He found she 'd got another Ben, 

Whose Christian name was John. 

" Sally Brown, Sally Brown, 
How could you serve me so ? 
I 've met with many a breeze before, 
But never such a blow ! " 

Then reading on his 'bacco-box, 

He heaved a heavy sigh, 
And then began to eye his pipe, 

And then to pipe his eye. 

And then he tried to sing, " All 's Well," 

But could not, though he tried ; 
His head was turned, and so he chewed 

His pigtail till he died. 

His death, which happened in his berth, 

At forty-odd befell ; 
They went and told the Sexton, and 

The Sexton tolled the bell. 

Thomas Hood. 



Ben Battle was a soldier bold, 

And used to war's alarms ; 
But a cannon-ball took off his legs, 
So he laid down his arms ! 
18* 



214 PLAY-DAT POEMS. 

Now, as they bore him off the field, 
Said he, " Let others shoot, 

For here I leave my second leg, 
And the Forty-second Foot ! " 

The army-surgeons made him limbs : 
Said he, " They 're only pegs ; 

But there 's as wooden members quite, 
As represent my legs 1 " 

Now Ben he loved a pretty maid, 
Her name was Nelly Gray ; 

So he went to pay her his devours, 
When he devoured his pay ! 

But when he called on Nelly Gray, 
She made him quite a scoff; 

And when she saw his wooden legs, 
Began to take them off I 

" Nelly Gray ! Nelly Gray ! 
Is this your love so warm ? 
The love that loves a scarlet coat 
Should be more uniform ! " 

Said she, " I loved a soldier once, 
For he was blithe and brave ; 

But I will never have a man 
With both legs in the grave ! 

" Before you had those timber toes, 
Your love I did allow, 
But then, you know, you stand upon 
Another footing now ! " 

" Nelly Gray ! Nelly Gray ! 
For all your jeering speeches, 



FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. 215 

At duty's call, I left my legs 
In Badajos's breaches/" 

11 Why then," said she, " you 've lost the feet 
Of legs in war's alarms, 
And now y ou cannot wear your shoes 
Upon your feats of arms i " 

" 0, false and fickle Nelly Gray 1 
I know why you refuse : 
Though I 've no feet — some other man 
Is standing in my shoes 1 

"I wish I ne'er had seen your face; 
But now a long farewell ! 
For you will be my death ; — alas 1 
You will not be my Nell!" 

Now, when he went from Nelly Gray, 

His heart so heavy got — 
And life was such a burthen grown, 

It made him take a knot ! 

So round his melancholy neck 

A rope he did entwine, 
And for his second time in life, 

Enlisted in the Line 1 



And then removed his pegs, 
And, as his legs were off — of course, 
He soon was off his legs 1 

And there he hung till he was dead 

As any nail in town — 
For, though distress had cut him up, 

It could not cut him down ! 



216 PL A T-DA T P OEMS. 

A dozen men sat on his corpse, 

To find out why he died — 
And they buried Ben in four cross-roads, 

With a stake in his inside ! 

Thomas Hood. 

Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe, 
Great Love, some legacies : — Here I bequeathe 
Mine eyes to Argus, if mine eyes can see ; 

If they be blind, then Love, I give them thee ; 
My tongue to fame ; to embassadors mine ears ; 
To women or the sea, my tears. 
Thou, Love, hast taught me heretofore, 
By making me serve her who had twenty more, 
That I should give to none but such as had too much before. 

My constancy I to the planets give ; 
My truth to them who at the court do live ; 
Mine ingenuity and openness 
To Jesuits ; to buffoons my pensiveness ; 
My silence to any who abroad have been ; 
My money to a Capuchin. 
Thou, Love, taught'st me, by appointing me 
To love there where no love received can be, 
Only to give to such as have an incapacity. 

My faith I give to Eoman Catholics ; 
All my good works unto the schismatics 
Of Amsterdam ; my best civility 
And courtship to a university ; 
My modesty I give to soldiers bare ; 
My patience let gamesters share ; 
Thou, Love, taught'st me, by making me 
Love her that holds my love disparity, 
Only to give to those that count my gifts indignity. 






THE WILL. 217 

I give my reputation to those 

Which were my friends ; mine industry to foes ; 

To schoolmen I bequeathe my doubtfulness ; 

My sickness to physicians, or excess ; 

To Nature all that I in rhyme have writ ; 
And to my company my wit. 
Thou, Love, by making me adore 

Her who begot this love in me before, 
Taught' st me to make as though I gave* when I do but re- 
store. 

To him for whom the passing-bell next tolls 
I give my physic-books ; my written rolls 
Of moral counsels I to Bedlam give ; 
My brazen medals unto them which live 
In want of bread; to them which pass among 
All foreigners, mine English tongue ; 
Thou, Love, by making me love one 
Who thinks her friendship a fit portion 
For younger lovers, dost my gifts thus disproportion. 

Therefore I '11 give no more, but I '11 undo 
The world by dying ; because love dies too. 
Then all your beauties will no more be worth 
Than gold in mines where none doth draw it forth ; 
And all your graces no more use shall have 
Than a sun-dial in a grave. 
Thou, Love, taught' st me, by making me 
Love her who doth neglect both thee and me, 
To invent and practice this one way to annihilate all three. 

John Donne. 



If the man who turnips cries, 
Cry not when his father dies, 
'T is a proof that he had rather 
Have a turnip than his father. 
19 Samuel Johnson*. 



218 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

A LEGEND OF THE LOWER HUDSON. 

The days were at their longest, 
The heat was at its strongest, 

When Brown, old friend and true, 
Wrote thus : " Dear Jack, why swelter 
In town when shade and shelter 

Are waiting here for you ? 
Quit Bulls and Bears and gambling, 
For rural sports and rambling 

Forsake your Wall Street tricks ; 
Come without hesitation, 
Check to Dobbs' Ferry Station. 

We dine at half-past six." 

I went, — a welcome hearty, 
A merry country party, 

A drive, and then croquet, 
A quiet, well-cooked dinner, 
Three times at billiards winner, — 

The evening sped away ; 
When Brown, the dear old joker, 
Cried, " Come, my worthy broker, 

The hour is growing late ; 
Your room is cool and quiet. 
As for the bed, just try it. 

Breakfast at half-past eight." 

I took Brown's hand, applauded 
His generous care, and lauded 

Dobbs' Ferry to the skies. 
A shade came o'er his features, — 
" We should be happy creatures, 

And this a paradise. 






D OBBS HIS FEBR Y. 219 

But, ah 1 the deep disgrace is, 
This loveliest of places 

A vulgar name should blight ! 
But, death to Dobbs ! we '11 change it, 
If money can arrange it, 

So, pleasant dreams; good-night! " 

I could not sleep, but, raising 
The window, stood, moon-gazing, 

In fairy-land a guest ; 
: On such a night," et cetera, — 
See Shakespeare for much better a 

Description of the rest, — 
I mused, how sweet to wander 
Beside the river, yonder ; 

And then the sudden whim 
Seized me my head to pillow 
On Hudson's sparkling billow, 

A midnight, moonlight swim ! 

Soon thought and soon attempted ; 
At once my room was emptied 

Of its sole occupant ; 
The roof was low and easily, 
In fact, quite Japanese-ily, 

I took the downward slant, 
Then, without stay or stopping, 
My first and last eaves-dropping, 

By leader-pipe I sped, 
And through the thicket gliding, 
Down the steep hillside sliding, 

Soon reached the river's bed. 

But what was my amazement, — 
The fair scene from the casement, 
How changed ! I could not guess 



220 PL A T-BAT P OEMS. 

Where track or rails had vanished, 
Town, villas, station, banished, — 

All was a wilderness. 
Only one ancient gable, 
A low-roofed inn and stable, 

A creaking sign displayed, 
An antiquated wherry, 
Below it — " Dobbs His Ferry " — 

In the clear moonlight swayed. 

I turned, and there the craft was, 
Its shape 'twixt scow and raft Avas, 

Square ends, low sides, and flat, 
And, standing close beside me, 
An ancient chap who eyed me, 

Beneath a steeple-hat ; 
Short legs — long pipe — style very 
Pre-Bevolutionary, — 

I bow, he grimly bobs, 
Then with some perturbation, 
By way of salutation, 

Says I " How are you, Dobbs ? " 

He grum and silent beckoned, 
And I, in half a second, " 
Scarce knowing what I did, 
Took the stern seat, Dobbs throwing 
Himself 'midships, and rowing, 

Swift through the stream we slid ; 
He pulled awhile, then stopping, 
And both oars slowly dropping, 

His pipe aside he laid, 
Drew a long breath, and taking 
An attitude, and shaking 

His fist towards shore, thus said : 



i, 



J) OBBS HIS FERR Y. 221 

" Of all sharp cuts the keenest, 
Of all mean turns the meanest. 

Vilest of all vile jobs, 
Worse than the Cow-Boy pillagers, 
Are these Dobbs' Ferry villagers 

A-going back on Dobbs ! 
'T would not be more anom'lous 
If Rome went back on Eom'lus 

(Old rum-un like myself), 
Or Hail Columbia, played out 
By Southern Dixie, laid out 

Columbus on the shelf ! 

" They say ' Dobbs ' ain't melodious, 
It 's 'horri^,' 'vulgar,' ' odious,' 

In all their crops it sticks ; 
And then the worse addendum 
Of ' Ferry ' does offend 'em 

More than its vile prefix. 
Well, it does seem distressing, 
But, if I 'm good at guessing, 

Each one of these same nobs, 
If there was money in it, 
Would ferry in a minute, 

And change his name to Dobbs I 

" That 's it, they 're not partic'lar, 
Respecting the auric'lar, 

At a stiff market rate ; 
But Dobbs' especial vice is, 
That he keeps down the prices 

Of all their real estate ! 
A name so unattractive 
Keeps villa-sites inactive, 

And spoils the brokers' jobs ; 



222 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

They think that speculation 
"Would rage at ' Paulding's Station,' 
Which stagnates now at ' Dobbs.' 

" ' Paulding's ! ' — that 's sentimental ! 
An old Dutch Continental, 

Bushwhacked up there a spell ; 
But why he should come blustering 
Round here, and filibustering, 

ife more than I can tell ; 
Sat playing for a wager, 
And nabbed a British major. 

Well, if the plans and charts 
From Andre's boots he hauled out, 
Is his name to be bawled out 

Forever, round tliese parts? 

" G-uess not! His pay and bounty 
And mon'ment from the county 

Paid him off, every cent, 
While this snug town and station, 
To every generation, 

Shall be Dobbs' monument ; 
Spite of all speculators 
And ancient-landmark traitors, 

Who, all along this shore, 
Are ever substitutin' 
The modern, highfalutin, 

For the plain names of yore. 

" Down there, on old Manhattan, 
Where land-sharks breed and fatten, 

They 've wiped out Tubby Hook. 
That famous promontory, 
Renowned in song and story, 

Which time nor tempest shook, 



DOBBS HIS FERRY. 223 

Whose name for aye had been good, 
Stands newly christened ' Inwood,' 

And branded with the shame 
Of some old rogue who passes ^ 

By dint of aliases, 

Afraid of his own name ! 

" See how they quite outrival, 
Plain barn-yard Spuytenduyvil, 

By peacock Riverdale, 
Which thinks all else it conquers, 
And over homespun Yonkers 

Spreads out its flaunting tail ! 
There 's new-named Mount St. Vincent, 
Where each dear little inn'cent 

Is taught the Popish rites, — 
Well, ain't it queer, wherever 
These saints possess the river 

They get the finest sites ! 

" They 've named a place for Irving, 
A trifle more deserving 

Than your French, foreign saints ; 
But if he has such mention, 
It 's past my comprehension 

Why Dobbs should cause complaints ; 
Wrote histories and such things, 
About Old Knick and Dutch things, 

Dolph Heyligers and Rips ; 
But no old antiquary 
Like him could keep a ferry, 

With all his authorships ! 

" By aid of these same showmen, 
Some fanciful cognomen 

Old Cro'nest stock might bring 



224 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

As high as Butter Hill is, 
Which, patronized by Willis, 

Leaves cards now as ' Storm-King ! 
Can't some poetic swell-beau 
Ee-christen old Crum Elbow 

And each prosaic bluff, 
Bold Breakneck gently flatter, 
And Dunderberg bespatter, 

With euphony and stuff! 

" 'T would be a magnum opus 
To bury old Esopus 

In Time's sepulchral vaults, 
Or in Oblivion's deep sea 
Submerge renowned Poughkeepsie, 

And also ancient Paltz ; 
How it would give them rapture 
Brave Stony Point to capture, 

And make it face about ; 
Bid Rhinebeck sound much smoother 
Than in the tongue of Luther, 

And wipe the Catskills out ! 

" Well, Dobbs is Dobbs, and faster 
Than pitch or mustard-plaster 

Shall it stick hereabouts, 
While Tappan Sea rolls yonder, 
Or round High Torn the thunder 

Along these ramparts shouts. 
No corner-lot banditti, 
Or brokers from the City- 
Like you — " Here Dobbs began 
Wildly both oars to brandish, 
As fierce as old Miles Standish, 
Or young Phil Sheridan. 



DOBBS HIS FERRY. 225 

Sternwards he rushed, — I, ducking, 
Seized both his legs, and chucking 

Dobbs sideways, splash he went, — 
The wherry swayed, then righted, 
While I, somewhat excited, 

Over the water bent ; 
Three times he rose, but vainly 
I clutched his form ungainly, 

He sank, while sighs and sobs 
Beneath the waves seemed muttered, 
And all the night-winds uttered 

In sad tones, "Dobbs ! Dobbs ! Dobbs ! " 

Just then some giant bowlders 
Upon my head and shoulders 

Made sudden, fearful raids, 
And on my face and forehead, 
With din and uproar horrid, 

Came several Palisades ; 
I screamed, and woke, in screaming, 
To see, by gaslight's gleaming, 

Brown's face above my bed : 
" Why, Jack ! what is the matter ? 
We heard a dreadful clatter 

And found you on the shed ! 

" It 's plain enough, supposing 
You sat there, moon-struck, dozing, 

Upon the window's edge, 
Then lost yourself, and falling, 
Just where we found you sprawling, 

Struck the piazza ledge ; 
A lucky hit, old fellow, 
Of black and blue and yellow 

It gives your face a touch, 
19* 



2 2 G P£4 r--D4 Y P OEMS. 

You saved your neck, but barely ; 
To state the matter fairly, 
You took a drop too much ! " 

I took the train next morning, 
Some lumps my nose adorning, 

My forehead, sundry knobs, 
My ideas slightly wandering, 
But, as I went, much pondering 

Upon my night with Dobbs ; 
Brown thinks it, dear old sinner, 
A case of " after dinner," 

And won't believe a word, 
Talks of " hallucination," 
" Laws of association," 

And calls my tale " absurd." 

Perhaps it is, but never, 
Say I, should we dissever 

Old places and old names; 
Guard the old landmarks truly, 
On the old altars duly 

Keep bright the ancient flames. 
For me, the face of Nature, 
■ No luckless nomenclature 

Of grace or beauty robs ; 
No, when of town I weary, 
I '11 make a strike in Erie, 

And buy a place at Dobbs ! 

William Allen Butler. 

Cije American Crabeler. 

To Lake Aghmoogenegamook, 

All in the State of Maine, 
A man from Wittequergaugaum came 

One evening: in the rain. 



THE AMERICAN TRA VELER. 227 

" I am a traveler," said he, 
" Just started on a tour, 
And go to Nomjamskillicook 
To-morrow mora at four." 

He took a tavern bed that night, 

And with the morrow's sun, 
By way of Sekledobskus went, 

With carpet-bag and gun. 

A week passed on ; and next we find 

Our native tourist come 
To that sequestered village called 

Genasagarn agum. 

From thence he went to Absequoit, 
And there — quite tired of Maine — 

He sought the mountains of Vermont, 
Upon a railroad train. 

Dog-Hollow, in the Green Mount State, 

Was his first stopping-place, 
And then Skunk' s-Misery displayed 

Its sweetness and its grace. 

By easy stages then he went 

To visit Devil's-Den ; 
And Scrabble-Hollow, by the way, 

Did come within his ken. 

Then via Nine-Holes and Goose-Green 

He traveled through the State, 
And to Virginia, finally, 

Was guided by his fate. 

Within the Old Dominion's bounds 
He wandered up and down ; — 



228 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

To-day at Buzzard-Roost ensconced, 
To-morrow at Hell-Town. 

At Pole-Cat, too, he spent a week, 
Till friends from Bull-Ring came, 

And made him spend a day with them 
In hunting forest game. 

Then, with his carpet-bag in hand, 
To Dog-Town next he went ; 

Though stopping at Free-jSTegro-Town, 
Where half a day he spent. 

From thence into ISTegationburg 

His route of travel lay, 
Which having gained, he left the State 

And took a southward way. 

North Carolina's friendly soil 

He trod at fall of night, 
And on a bed of softest down 

He slept at Hell's-Delight. 

Morn found him on the road again, 

To Lazy-Level bound ; 
At Bull's-Tail, and Lick-Lizzard too, 

G-ood provender he found. 

But the plantations near Burnt-Coat 

Were even finer still, 
And made the wondering tourist feel 

A soft, delicious thrill. 

At Tear-Shirt, too, the scenery 
Most charming did appear, 

With Snatch-It in the distance far, 
And Purgatory near. 



WHEN MOONLIKE ORE THE H AZURE SEAS. 229 

But, 'spite of all these pleasant scenes, 

The tourist stoutly swore, 
That home is brightest after all, 

And travel is a bore. 

So back he went to Maine, straightway, 

A little wife he took, 
And now is making nutmegs at 

Moosehicmagunticook. 

Robert H. Newell. 

M*f)w Jffloonlifte ore tfje Jga^ure Seas, 

When moonlike ore the hazure seas 

In soft effulgence swells, 
When silver jews and balmy breeze 

Bend down the Lily's bells ; 
When calm and deap, the rosy sleap 

Has lapt your soal in dreems, 
R Hangeline ! R lady mine ! 

Dost thou remember Jeames ? 

I mark thee in the Marble All, 

Where England's loveliest shine — 
I say the fairest of them hall 

Is Lady Hangeline. 
My soul, in desolate eclipse, 

With recollection teems — 
And then I hask, with weeping lips, 

Dost thou remember Jeames ? 

Away ! I may not tell thee hall 
This soughring heart endures — 

There is a lonely sperrit-call 
That Sorrow never cures ; 

There is a little, little Star, 
That still above me beams ; 
20 



230 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

It is the Star of Hope — but ar ! 
Dost thou remember Jeames ? 

William Makepeace Thackeray. 

ILtttle i3reecf)es» 

I don't go much on religion, 

I never ain't had no show ; 
But I 've got a middlin' tight grip, sir, 

On the handful o' things I know. 
I don't pan out on the prophets, 

And free-will, and that sort of thing, — 
But I b'lieve in God and the angels, 

Ever sence one night last spring. 

I come into town with some turnips, 

And my little Grabe come along, — 
No four-year-old in the county 

Could beat him for pretty and strong, 
Peart and chipper and sassy, 

Always ready to swear and fight, — 
And I larnt him to chaw terbacker, 

Jest to keep his milk-teeth white. 

The snow come down like a blanket, 

As I passed by Taggart's store ; 
I went in for a jug of molasses, 

And left the team at the door. 
They scared at something and started, — 

I heard one little squall, 
And hell-to-split over the prairie 

Went team, Little Breeches and all. 

Hell-to-split over the prairie ! 
I was almost froze with skeer ; 
, But we rousted up some torches, 
And sarched for 'em far and near. 



A COUNTRY CO URTSIIir. o.ll 

At last we struck bosses and wagon, 

Snowed under a soft white mound, 
Upsot, dead beat, — but of little G-abe 

No hide nor hair was found. 

And here all hope soured on me, 

Of my fellow critters' aid, — 
I jest flopped down on my marrow bones, 

Crotch-deep in the snow and prayed. 
By this, the torches was played out, 

And me and Isrul Parr 
Went off for some wood to a sheepfold, 

That he said was somewhar thar. 

We found it at last, and a little shed 

Where they shut up the lambs at night. 
We looked in, and see them huddled thar, 

So warm and sleepy and white; — 
And thar sot Little Breeches, and chirped, 

As peart as ever you see, 
" I want a chaw of terbacker, 

And that 's what 's the matter of me." 

How did he git thar ? Angels. 

He could never have walked in that storm. 
They jest scooped down and toted him 

To whar it was safe and warm. 
And I think that saving a little child, 

And bringing him to his own, 
Is a derned sight better business 

Than loafing- around The Throne. 



Jonx II AY. 



& (ftounttg <Eourtgf)ip. 

It was a night in harvest-time ; 
The full, clear moon was gleamin' 



232 PL A Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

With light that leads a fellow straight 

To where bright eyes are beamin' ; 
And earth and air were bathed all round 

In just such milky splendor 
As soaks a fellow through and through, 

And makes him soft and tender. 
Tou '11 see young lovers on such nights, 

Paired like the lights and shadows, 
And hear low voices on the paths 

That lead across the meadows. 



The hands had both gone up to bed, 

Tired out with all day sweepin' 
Their cradles through the heavy grain, 

And you could hear them sleepin' ; 
But somehow Cousin Jake hung round 

As restless as a swaller, 
Till I slunk by to leave him free 

And watch a chance to foller, 
Then off he struck across the fields 

To see the parson's darter — 
He thought he scooted mighty sly, 

But I was right straight arter. 
"Well, now, you 'd ought to seen liim go, 

Down by the old stone- quarry, 
And out through Jones's pasture, like 

A Shanghai in a hurry ! 
At last I saw the parson's house 

A-peepin' through the maples, 
While dark behind the orchard lay, 

All loaden down with apples. 
There wa' n't a light about the place, 

Save one in the back kitchin, 
And by it sat the parson's wife, 

A-stitchin' and a-stitchin'. 



A COUNTRY COURTSHIP. 233 

Jake he stole round into the yard, 

All this here time supposin' 
That I was safe at home in dad's, 

And snug in bed a-snoozin' ; 
I crawled along close by the fence, 

And through the rails kept peekin', 
While he Avent dodgin' round the barn, 

And through the garden sneakin' : 
You see the parson drove his folks 

With a patent pious snaffle, 
And was the sort of parent 

That a feller 's got to baffle. 
Just then Jake whistled low and clear, 

And then a little louder : 
Thinks I, "If you wake up the dog, 

He '11 chaw you into chowder ! " 
I knew he was a surly brute ; 

One night he bit our Barney, 
Who come to tip the hired girl 

A little Irish blarney ; 
Another time when G-ridley's steer 

Broke in the parson's clover, 
He jumped and ketched him by the nose 

And keeled him right square over. 
I heard a growl so awful deep, 

I knowed at once 't was Towser's, 
And. waited just to see him rush 

And grab Jake by the trousers; 
But no such thing : he wagged his tail 

When Jake said, " Poor old fellow," 
And clapped him on his shaggy back, 

All striped with black and yellow. 
He nosed around a little while, 

Pronounced the guest all right, 
And just a kind o' doggedly 

Wished him a pleasant night. 



234 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

I watched Jake all this time, and saw 

His eyeballs both a-glistenin', 
And by the way his ears stuck up 

I knew he was a-listenin'. 
At last I heard the shed-door creak 

Upon its rusty hinges, 
And saw two little bright eyes peek 

From out their silken fringes — 
I heard him snicker as he took 

Her little hand in his 'n ; 
She tried to draw it out, but no — 

Seemed 's though 't was in State's-pris'n. 
The moonlight was a streamin' down 

Too bright for Libbie's blushes, 
And so they turned and took the seat 

Beside the lilac-bushes ; 
Where sitting safely in the shade, 

Among the moon-paled posies, 
They got their heads so mighty close 

I thought they 'd bunk their noses ; 
And there they whispered for a while, 

As soft as kittens purrin' : 
Thinks I, " It 's just about the time 

For me to be a-stirrin'." 



I stepped, right back among the corn, 

And got a rousin' punkin, 
All rosy ripe, but soft in spots : 
" By gum ! " says I, u that % s bunkin ! 
You '11 never keep for cattle-feed 

Nor makin' pies ; but, gosh ! 
Although you 're spoiled for punkin, 

You 're exactly right for squash ! " 
I crept just as I 've seen our cat 

A-huntin' of a squirrel, 



A CO UNTR Y CO Uli TSIUP. 235 

Until I come to where he sat 

A-talkin' to his girl. 
He had his head a-kind o' down, 

A-sayin' suthin' tender: 
I saw there wa' n't no time to lose — 

Now was the time to send her ! 
I heaved her up, and let her zip, 

Right square atween his shoulders : 
The way that punkin smashed and flew 

Would terrify beholders ! 
I guess he thought 't was his own head 

That fell around him shattered, 
And that 't was surely his own brains 

By which he was bespattered — 
(A very natural mistake, 

Both heads were of one color, 
If anything the punkin's was 

A leetle mite the duller) — 
And though Jake always went well dressed, 

And wa' n't by no means needy, 
I never saw one in my life 

Look so confounded seedy ! 
Jemima ! what a yell he let ! 

And then he made a bound, 
And cleared that 'ere old seven-rail fence, 

While Lib she screamed and swound ! 



Great Caesar ! what a fearful mess 

I 'd made on 't with my larkin' ! 
I thought I heard the side-door slam, 

The dog began a-barkin'. 
I knew if ketched in such a scrape, 

I 'd look almighty silly ; 
But Lib — I could n't leave her there, 

Stretched like a wilted lily ! 



236 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

So down I bent, more scared than Jake, 

A-thinkin' every minit 
That such a fuss would rouse the house 

With every critter in it. 
And there she lay as still as death, 

Her face all set and white ; 
I raised her in my arms — and, gosh ! 

My heart did beat with fright; 
It made me tremble just to see 

Her look as pale as starlight, 
And find her forehead and her lips, 

As cold, too, as that far light. 
But soon I noticed, as I watched, 

Her color grow less pallid, 
As one by one, back to their homes, 

Her scattered senses rallied — 
And then — you 'd ought to seen her blush, 

And stare in blank surprise, 
At seein' me instead of Jake, 

On openin' her eyes ! 
Till, all at once, she tried to rise, 

And bu'sted out a cryin', 
And then I felt most awful mean, 

That 'ere there 's no denyin'. 
And " Lib," says I, still holdin' her, 
" You 're dreadful mad, I know ; 
Now, do forgive me, won't you, come ? " 

She sobbed out, " Let me go ! " 
I said she must forgive me first, 

My arm around her tightened — 
She did n't struggle very hard, 

She was so weak and frightened. 
And then I told her how, for fun, 

I 'd watched and followed Jake up, 
And lammed him with the punkin just 

To see him kind o' wake up ; 



WIDOW MACHREE. 237 

And when I pictured how he Jumped 

And bellowed like a calf, 
_i.nd how the punkin smashed and flew, 

You 'd ought to seen her laugh ! 

Now, though I ain't by no means soft, 

I did n't know how tryin' 
'T would be to have Lib in my arms, 

A-laughin' and a-cryin' ; 
And though I felt 't was rather rough, 

The way she chanced to come there, 
I fairly longed to hold her clasped 

Until she 'd grown to home there. 
Sometimes, mayhap, afore that night, 

At singin'-school or meetin', 
I 'd dreamed of more 'twixt her and me 

Than cold and distant greetin' ; 
And now I wished her all my own, 

The precious little beauty ; 
But she grew shy, and I released 

My rudely captured booty. 
I did n't hurry home that night, 

I 'd caught the self-same fever 
I tried to cure in Cousin Jake, 

Before I turned to leave her. 

Francis O'Connor. 

Widow Machree, it 's no wonder you frown, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree ; 
Faith it ruins your looks, that same dirty black gown, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree. 
How altered your air, 
With that close cap you wear — 

20* 



238 PL A Y-DAY P OEMS. 

'T is destroying your hair, 

Which should be flowing free ; 
Be no longer a churl 
Of its black silken curl, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree ! 

Widow Machree,- now the summer is come, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree, 
When everything smiles, should a beauty loo 
glum? 

Och hone ! Widow Machree. 
See the birds go in pairs, 
And the rabits and hares — 
Why, even the bears 

Now in couples agree ; 
And the mute little fish, 
Though they can't spake, they wish, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree. 

Widow Machree, and when winter comes in, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree, 
To be poking the fire all alone is a sin, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree ; 
Sure the shovel and tongs 
To each other belongs, 
And the kettle sings songs 

Full of family glee ; 
While alone with your cup, 
Like a hermit, you sup, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree. 

And how do you know, with the comforts I 've 
towld, 
Och hone ! Widow Machree, 
But you 're keeping some poor fellow out in the 
cowld? 
Och hone ! Widow Machree : 



THE AMATEUR SPELLING- MATCH. 239 

With such sins on your head 
Sure your peace would be fled, 
Could you sleep in your bed 

"Without thinking to see 
Some ghost or some sprite, 
That would wake you each night, 

Crying, "Och hone! Widow Machree?" 

Then take my advice, darling Widow Machree, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree ; 
And with my advice, faith, I wish you 'd take me, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree. 
You 'd have me to desire 
Then to sit by the fire, 
And sure Hope is no liar 

In whispering to me, 
That the ghosts would depart, 
When you 'd me near your hear.t, 

Och hone ! Widow Machree. 

Samuel Lover. 

CJe Amateur Spelima-JHatd). 

Since spelling-matches everywhere 

O'er all the land abound, 
Why should not we, too, " do and dare ? " 

I will the words propound, 
And you the "favored scholar" be, 

As Rogers' group suggests. 
With what a wealth of poetry 

The subject he invests ! 

Spell " spoons." " What! such a word !" you say ? 
" But fit for kitchen-school? 
Or in New Orleans, far away, 
When under Butler's rule ? " 



240 PL A Y-DA T P OEMS. 

Fie ! fie ! should social science come, 

Or scurvy politics, 
To mar our peace with brutal bomb ? 

Away with all such tricks ! 

There ! please go on. " S " — oh ! the sound 

Through lips that sweetly smile, 
Like sibilant waters unprofound, 

That aimless hours beguile 
On pebbly beaches ! " P '' — more staid 

The smile now on the lips, 
As though love's sun that warmed the maid 

Was partly 'neath eclipse. 

" Double o " — through parting lips that breaks, 

Like gurgling rill half held 
'Tween walling rocks and tent-like brakes, 

And wonder semi-knelled 
Through circling lips. "N" — here again 

The semi-smile that played 
Athwart your lips so sweetly when 

The " s " you first essayed. 

" S " — ah ! the smile is here again ! 

Oh, sweet thou letter " s " ! 
You 'mind me of that moment when 

A tremulous little " Yes " 
From self-same lips a day in eld 

My being thrilled with joy — 
When clouds of doubt were quick dispelled, 

And life lost all alloy. 

" Quite right," I said; "but why this waste 
Of letters, since with two 
It can be spelled with greater haste, 
More truth, and less ado? " 



RORY VMORE; OR, GOOD OMENS. 241 

" Oh, fie ! S, p, double o, n, s, 

Spells ' spoons : ' you need n't try- 
To spell the word with any less." 
"Yes, dear; two — l u and I.' " 

Earl Marble. 

iftorg (©'JHote; or, <£ocrtj (Dmens. 



He was bold as a hawk — she as soft as the dawn, 

He wished in his heart pretty Kathleen to please, 

And he thought the best way to do that was to tease. 

11 Now, Rory, be aisy," sweet Kathleen would cry, 

(Reproof on her lip, but a smile in her eye,) 

" With your tricks I don't know, in troth, what I 'm about,. 

Faith you 've teased till I 've put on my cloak inside out." 

" Oh! jewel," says Rory, " that same is the way 

You 've thrated my heart for this many a day ; 

And it 's plaz'd that I am, and why not, to be sure? 

For 't is all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More. 

" Indeed, then," says Kathleen, " don't think of the like, 

For I half gave a promise to soothering Mike ; 

The ground that I walk on he loves, I '11 be bound." 

" Faith," says Rory, "I 'd rather love you than the ground. 

"Now, Rory, I '11 cry if you don't let me go : 

Sure I drame ev'ry night that I 'm hating you so ! " 

" Oh," says Rory, " that same I 'm delighted to hear, 

For drames always go by conthrairies, my dear ; 

Oh ! jewel, keep draming that same till you die, 

And bright morning will give dirty night the black lie! 

And 't is plaz'd that I am, and why not, to be sure ? 

Since 't is all for good luck," says bold Rory O'More. 

" Arrah Kathleen, my darlint, you 've teased me enough, 
Sure I 've thrash' d for your sake Dinny Grimes and Jim 

Duff; 

21 



242 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

And I 've made myself, drinking your health, quite a baste, 
So I think, after that, I may talk to the priest." 
Then Eory, the rogue, stole his arm round her neck, 
So soft and so white, without freckle or speck, 
And he look'd in her eyes that were beaming with light. 
And he kiss'd her sweet lips; don't you think he was right 
" Now Rory, leave off, sir; you '11 hug me no more, 
That 's eight times to-day you have kissed me before." 
"Then here goes another," says he, "to make sure, 
For there 's luck in odd numbers," says Eory O'More. 

Samuel Lover. 

$miti) an* act. 

It once might have been, once only : 
We lodged in a street together, 

You, a sparrow on the house-top lonely. 
I, a lone she-bird of his feather. 

Your trade was with sticks and clay, 

You thumbed, thrust, patted and polished, 

Then laughed, " They will see some day 
Smith made, and G-ibson demolished." 

My business was song, song, song ; 

I chirped, cheeped, trilled and twittered, 
" Kate Brown 's on the boards ere long, 
And G-risi's existence embittered ! " 

I earned no more by a warble 
Than you by a sketch in plaster ; 

You wanted a piece of marble, 
I needed a music-master. 

We studied hard in our styles, 

Chipped each at a crust like Hindoos, 



TO UTH AND ART. 24 3 

For air, looked out on the tiles, 

For fun watched each other's windows. 

You lounged, like a boy of the South, 
Cap and blouse — nay, a bit of beard too; 

Or you got it rubbing your mouth 
With fingers the clay adhered to. 

And I — soon managed to find 

Weak points in the flower-fence facing, 
Was forced to put up a blind 

And be safe in my corset-lacing. 

No harm ! It was not my fault 

If you never turned your eyes' tail up, 

As I shook upon E in alt., 

Or ran the chromatic scale up : 

For spring bade the sparrows pair, 
And the boys and girls gave guesses, 

And stalls in our streets looked rare 
With bulrush and watercresses. 

Why did not you pinch a flower 

In a pellet of clay and fling it ? 
Why did I not put a power 

Of thanks in a look, or sing it ? 

I did look, sharp as a lynx, 

(And yet the memory rankles,) 
When models arrived, some minx 

Tripped up-stairs, she and her ankles. 

But I think I gave you as good ! 

" That foreign fellow — who can know 
How she pays, in a playful mood, 

For his tuning her that piano ? " 



244 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Could you say so, and never say, 
" Suppose we join hands and fortunes, 
And I fetch her from over the way, 

Her, piano, and long tunes and short tunes V 

No, no ; you would not be rash, 
Nor I rasher and something over : 

You 've to settle yet Gibson's hash, 
And G-risi yet lives in clover. 

But you meet the Prince at the Board, 
I 'm queen myself at bals-pare, 

I 've married a rich old lord, 
And you 're dubbed knight and an R. A. 

Each life 's unfulfilled, you see ; 

It hangs still, patchy and scrappy : 
We have not sighed deep, laughed free, 

Starved, feasted, despaired — been happy. 

And nobody calls you a dunce, 
And people suppose me clever : 

This could but have happened once, 
And we missed it, lost it forever. 

Robert Browning. 



&j)e Gentle pieman. 

At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper 
One whom I will call Elvira, and we talked of love and 
Tupper — 

Mr. Tupper and the poets, very lightly with them dealing, 
For I 've always been distinguished for a strong poetic 
feeling. 



THE GENTLE PIEMAN. 245 

Then we let off paper crackers, each of which contained a 

motto, 
And she listened while I read them, till her mother told her 

not to. 

Then she whispered, " To the ball-room we had better, dear, 

be walking ; 
If we stop down here much longer, really people will be 

talking." 

There were noblemen in coronets, and military cousins, 
There were captains by the hundred, there were baronets 
by the dozens. 

Yet she heeded not their offers, but dismissed them with a 

blessing ; 
Then she let down all her back hair which had taken long in 

dressing. 

Then she had convulsive sobbings in her agitated throttle, 
Then she wiped her pretty eyes and smelt her pretty smell- 
ing bottle. 

So I whispered, " Dear Elvira, say, — what can the matter be 

with you ? 
Does anything you 've eaten, darling Popsy, disagree with 

you?" 

But spite of all I said, her sobs grew more and more dis- 
tressing, 

And she tore her pretty back hair which had taken long in 
dressing. 

Then she gazed upon the carpet, at the ceiling then above 

me, 
And she whisperrd, " Ferdinando, do you really, really love 

me ? " 



2 4 G PL A Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

" Love you?'' said I, then I sighed, and then I gazed upon 

her sweetly — 
For I think I do this kind of thing particularly neatly — 

" Send me to the Arctic regions, or illimitable azure, 
On a scientific goose-chase, with my CoxwelJ. or my 
Grlaisher ! 

" Tell me whither I may hie me, tell me, dear one, that I 

may know — 
Is it up the highest Andes ? down a horrible volcano ? " 

But she said, " It is n't polar bears, or hot volcanic grottoes, 
Only find out who it is that writes those lovely cracker mot- 
toes." 

" Tell me, Henry Wadsworth, Alfred, Poet Close, or Mister 

Tupper, 
Do you write the bonbon mottoes my Elvira pulls at supper ? " 

But Henry Wadsworth smiled, and said he had not had that 

honor : 
And Alfred, too, disclaimed the words that told so much 

upon her. 

"Mister Martin Tupper, Poet Close, I beg of you inform 

us;" 
But my question seemed to throw them both into a rage 

enormous. 

Mister Close expressed a wish that he could only get a nigh 

to me. 
And Mister Martin Tupper sent the following reply to me : 

" A fool is bent upon a twig, but wise men dread a bandit," 
Which I know was very clever ; but I did not understand it. 



TIIE GENTLE PIEMAN. 24V 

even weary years I wandered — Patagonia, China, Norway, 
Till at last I sank exhausted at a pastry cook his doorway. 

There were fuchsias and geraniums, and daffodils and myrtle, 
So I entered, and I ordered half a basin of mock turtle. 

He was plump and he was chubby, he was smooth and he 

was rosy, 
And his little wife was pretty, and particularly cosy. 

And he chirped and sang, and skipped about, and laughed 

with laughter hearty — 
He was wonderfully active for so very stout a party. 

And I said, " 0, gentle pieman, why so very, very merry ? 
Is it purity of conscience, or your one-and-seven sherry ? " 

But he answered, " I 's so happy — no profession could be 

dearer — 
If I am not humming l Tra ! la ! la ! ' I 'm singing ' Tirer, 

lirer ! ' 

" First I go and make the patties, and the puddings and the 

jellies, 
Then I make a sugar bird-cage, which upon a table swell is ; 

" Then I polish all the silver which a supper-table lacquers ; 
Then I write the pretty mottoes which you find inside the 
crackers" — 

11 Found at last ! " I madly shouted. " Gentle pieman, you 

astound me ! " 
Then I waved the turtle soup enthusiastically round me. 

And I shouted and I danced until he 'd quite a crowd around 

him — 
And I rushed away exclaiming, " I have found him ! I have 

found him! " 



248 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

And I heard the gentle pieman in the road behind me trill- 
ing, 

" ' Tira ! lira ! ' stop him, stop him ! ' Tra ! la ! la ! ' the soup *s 
a shilling ! " 

But until I reached Elvira's home, I never, never waited, 
And Elvira 's to her Ferdinand irrevocably mated ! 

William S. Gilbert. 

& J£ice (ftotrapcmtient. 

The glow and the glory are plighted 

To darkness, for evening is come, 
The lamp in Grlebe Cottage is lighted, 

The birds and the sheep-bells are dumb. 
I 'm alone at my casement, for Pappy 

Is summoned to dinner to Kew : 
I 'm alone, my dear Fred, but I 'm happy — ■ 

I ! m thinking of you. 

I wish you were here. Were I duller 

Than dull, you 'd be dearer than dear ; 
I am dressed in your favorite color — 

Dear Fred, how I wish you were here ! 
I am wearing my lazuli necklace, 

The necklace you fastened askew ! 
Was there ever so rude or so reckless 

A darling as you ? 

I want you to come and pass sentence 

On two or three books with a plot ; 
Of course you know " Janet's Eepentance " ? 

I 'm reading Sir Waverley Scott, 
The story of Edgar and Lucy, 

How thrilling, romantic, and true ; 
The Master (his bride was a goosey !) 

Reminds me of you. 



A NICE CORRESPOXDEXT. 249 

To-day, in my ride, I 've been crowning 

The beacon; its magic still lures, 
For up there you discoursed about Browning, 

That stupid old Browning of 3* ours. 
His vogue and his verve are alarming, 

I 'm anxious to give him his due ; 
But, Fred, he 's not nearly so charming 

A poet as you. 

I heard how you shot at the Beeches, 

I saw how you rode Chanticleer, 
I have read the report of your speeches, 

And echoed the echoing cheer. 
There 's a whisper of hearts you are breaking, 

I envy their owners, I do ! 
Small marvel that Fortune is making 

Her idol of you. 

Alas for the world, and its dearly 

Bought triumph, and fugitive bliss ! 
Sometimes I half wish I were merely 

A plain or a penniless miss : 
But, perhaps, one is best with a measure 

Of pelf, and I 'm not sorry, too, 
That I 'm pretty, because it 's a pleasure, 

My dearest, to you. 

Your whim is for frolic and fashion, 

Your taste is for letters and art, 
This rhyme is the commonplace passion 

That glows in a fond woman's heart. 
Lay it by in a dainty deposit 

For relics, we all have a few ! 
Love, some day they '11 print it, because it 

Was written to you. 

Frederick Locker. 
21* 



250 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

f^er Hettet. 

I 'm sitting alone by the fire, 

Dressed just as I came from the dance, 
In a robe even you would admire, — 

It cost a cool thousand in France ; 
I 'in be-diamonded out of all reason, 

My hair is done up in a cue : 
In short, sir, " the belle of the season " 

Is wasting an hour on you. 

A dozen engagements I 've broken ; 

I left in the midst of a set ; 
Likewise a proposal, half spoken, 

That waits — on the stairs — for me yet. 
They say he '11 be rich, — when he grows up, 

And then he adores me indeed. 
And you, sir, are turning your nose up, 

Three thousand miles off as you read. 

. " And how do I like my position ? " 

" And what do I think of New York ? " 
" And now, in my higher ambition, 

With whom do I waltz, flirt, or talk ? " 
" And is n't it nice to have riches, 

And diamonds and silks, and all that ? " 
" And are n't it a change to the ditches 
And tunnels of Poverty Flat? " 

Well, yes, — if you saw us out driving 

Each day in the park, four-in-hand, — 
If you saw poor dear mamma contriving 

To look supernaturally grand, — 
If you saw papa's picture, as taken 

By Brady, and tinted at that, — 
You 'd never suspect he sold bacon 

And flour at Poverty Flat. 



HER LETTER. 251 

And yet, just this moment, when sitting 

In the glare of the grand chandelier, — 
In the bustle and glitter befitting 

The " finest soiree of the year," — 
In the mists of a gauze de Chambery, 

And the hum of the smallest of talk, — 
Somehow, Joe, I thought of the " Ferry," 

And the dance that we had on " The Fork ; " 

Of Harrison's barn, with its muster 

Of flags festooned over the wall ; 
Of the candles that shed their soft lustre 

And tallow on head-dress and shawl ; 
Of the steps that we took to one fiddle ; 

Of the dress of my queer vis-a-vis ; 
And how I once went down the middle 

With the man that shot Sandy McGee ; 

Of the moon that was quietly sleeping 

On the hill when the time came to go ; 
Of the few baby peaks that were peeping 

From under their bed-clothes of snow ; 
Of that ride, — that to me was the rarest ; 

Of — the something you said at the gate,— 
Ah, Joe, then I was n't an heiress 

To " the best-paying lead in the State." 

Well, well, it 's all past ; yet it 's funny 

To think, as I stood in the glare 
Of fashion and beauty and money, 

That I should be thinking, right there, 
Of some one who breasted high water, 

And swam the North Fork, and all that, 
Just to dance with old Folinsbee's daughter, 

The Lily of Poverty Flat, 



252 PL A Y-DAT P OEMS. 

But goodness ! what nonsense I 'm writing ! 

(Mamma says my taste still is low,) 
Instead of my triumphs reciting, 

I 'm spooning on Joseph, — heigh-ho ! 
And I 'm to be " finished " by travel, — 

Whatever 's the meaning of that, — 
Oh ! why did papa strike pay gravel 

In drifting on Poverty Flat ? 

Good night, — here 's the end of my paper ; 

Good night, — if the longitude please, — 
For may be, while wasting my taper, 
Your sun 's climbing over the trees. 
But know, if you have n't got riches, 

And are poor, dearest Joe, and all that, 
That my heart 's somewhere there in the ditches, 
And you 've struck it, — on Poverty Flat. 

Bret Harte. 

Cf)e SSeautg. 

Be it my most pleasing duty 

To describe a little beauty ; 

Though I never saw her face 

But within a picture-case. 

'T would look better in a bonnet, 

With a wreath of flowers upon it, 

And a living smile to sun it. 

But even round that picture cover 

Love and Memory ever hover, 

Like the bees round tops of clover. 

It is the daguerreotype 

Of all that 's rich and rare and ripe ! 

Let me count the rosary 

Of her charms, and bend the knee 

Of unpretending poesy 






THE BEAUTY. 253 

Before the leather-covered shrine 
Of this patron saint of thine, 
Who, combining every grace, 
Eeigns a female Bonny-face : 

Hair in deep, dark currents flowing, 
Whose smooth waves with light are glowing, 
As in countless drifts and whorls 
It breaks upon her neck in curls. 
Flashing eyes, with azure tinged, 
Jetty arched, and silken fringed ; 
Blest he '11 be whom their warm glances 
Coax along to love's advances ; 
Happy he who shall behold 
Love's first buds in them unfold. 
Her dainty nose I '11 not define 
As either Greek or aquiline, 
Nor it with ostentation call 
" The noblest Roman of them all " — 
But all their beauties blent in one 
Could only match this paragon ; 
For in it mingle all the graces 
Seen in those of classic faces. 
Cheeks on which, though peace reposes, 
War again the jealous roses. 
A dainty mouth en wreathed with smiles, 
But free from all coquettish wiles, 
Whose curved lips, vermilion hued, 
Are love's own sweet similitude ; 
While through them oft are seen beneath 
Flashing, pearl-enameled teeth. 
Throat that like a marble column, 
Curtained by her tresses' volume, 
Stands revealed as in a niche, 
Splendidly adorned and rich, 
Moulded to artistic lines, 
And polished till it fairly shines. 



! 5 4 PL A Y-DA T P OEMS. 

There you see, all rare and bright, 
A face of which I dream at night. 
If her charms I ; ve rightly told, 
'T is an angel you behold. 

Who will win and wear the beauty ? 

Some old fellow grim and sooty. 

You smile, and doubtless think it funny — 

Let me add, he '11 have the money ! 

A sour and mouldy, hard old crust, 

Round whom dame Fortune drifts her dust — 

Some brute, who may abuse and thump her — 

Or some sleek young counter-jumper — 

A shrewd, adulterating grocer, — 

Methinks I hear you mutter '"No. sir! " 

Ah! my boy, you should know better; 

One of them is sure to get her. 

Depend upon it, she '11 be won 

By Jones, or Brown, or Robinson. 

If she fishes for a mate 

With youth and beauty as her bait, 

The chances are, she '11 catch a Tartar, 

And die a matrimonial martyr, 

Or, after years of angling, marry 

Tom, aye, even Dick or Harry. 

If her heart is' not as true 

As her features fair to view, 

For you to strive to rival Mammon 

Is worse, my friend, far worse than gammon. 

Most beauties are, you should consider, 

Knocked down to the highest bidder. 

Every one has some sweet face 
Prisoned in a picture-case, 
Or by memory's magic art 
Photographed upon the heart ; 



TO FANNY. 255 

And we all, in gloomy days, 

Steal apart and on them gaze. 

Some bring thoughts of hope and gladness, 

Some of by-gone days and sadness ; 

As old eyes, by longing kindled, 

Fondly to past pleasures travel, 

And weird fingers, lean and dwindled, 

All their web of life unravel, 

For the threads of golden sheen 

That far apart are dimly seen. 

Michael O'Connor. 

2To dTanng. 



Fanny, it 's my belief 

You 're the work of a witch and a thief ! 

ii. 
Not such a witch as revealed his doom in the war 
To the king, by the ghost, in the dwelling at hilled En Dor ; 
Or stalked in Thrace, wrinkled, austere, acerb, 
With brazen sickle cropping the moonlit herb ; 
Nor she, against the abyss of the night descried, 
Throned on the rock on the mountain side, — 
The invoker of carnage, black, with fire-eyed glare, 
Grand in the depths of the livid and trembling air. 

in. 

Not such a witch as dragged o'er the ridges of slain, 

The corpse with her hook on the moaning Pharsalian plain, 

And under the lateral jags of the gloomf ul yew, 

By the hell-deep cave, its spirit from Acheron drew ; 

Nor the woman of Thessaly, crouched in the crumbling 

tomb, 
Decrepit, leathern, red in the embers' bloom, 



2$6 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Wreathed with the coiling smoke of smouldering moly, 

Hyssop, and vervain, mumbling spells unholy ; 

Nor" Canidia, lit by Colchian perfumes' flare, 

The bristle of wild snakes stirring her terrible hair ; 

Nor fell Medea, that, borne by dragons of fire, 

Fled through the air from the sword of the childless sire : 

Nor the triad, withered and weird, that showed Macbeth 

The sinister doubles of toil and trouble and death ; 

Nor the hag of the wood, disproportionate, tall as a lance, 

That, rancorous, duskily gnashing, with basilisk glance, 

And white mane stiffening, spired, in her rose-silk garb, 

O'er the steel-bright knight, aghast on his plunging barb. 



In the night black hut b}' the brazier's sanguine glow, 

Roasting the waxen manikin — gruesome thing! — 

Whose wasting wasted the marrow and flesh of the king ; 

Nor Avith crooked stick and conical hat, the crone, 

Red-cloaked at dusk in the haunted dell alone ; 

Nor she that to Faust and malign Mephisto came 

Down the chimney yelling, scorched by the roaring flame ; 

Nor any that went into Mohra's lonely field, 

And shrill to Satan in stormy chorus pealed, 

Come, antecessor, to Biockula hear thy load, 

And on goat or spit, to the revel of devils rode ; 

Nor any that raced to the Brocken's lurid brow, 

In tempest and streaming song on a howling sow ; 

Or scurried aloft on a broomstick, weaving ills, 

In the evil night o'er the dark New England hills. 



Not such as these : behold they loom, 
Terraced in sullen lights on a Rembrandt gloom, — 
Phantoms of awful age and terror and pain and bane, — 
Vague and vast, a background of the night, — 



TO FANNY. 257 

All for a point of glittering, rosy light, — 

All to project my witch of delicatesse, — 

Sweet sylph shape of star-eyed prettiness, 

And beauty-teeming brain ! 

All to relieve one little witch-queen of May, — 

A spirit of gay and gentle hours ; 

Next of blood to planets and flowers, 

The odor and the ray. 

A witch, be it understood, 

Funny and fair and good, 

Tiny and pretty and jolly ; 

A love, a sweet, a prize, a pet, 

An airy, fairy dandizette, 

A maid of honor to Cupid god, 

A fairy girl of the period, 

A wee little lady of delicate breeding, 

Foreign to horror and melancholy, 

And guiltless of any uncanny proceeding. 

Fond, be sure, of the latest fashion ; 

Silks and laces and gems her passion ; 

Fond as well of the flower-bright lawn, 

Blue-bird, spring-time, star, and dawn. 

Never clothed in the monstrous rags 

Or ponderous robes of the witches and hags ; 

Never a haunter of forest glooms, 

Moon-weird fields, or caves, or tombs, 

Or sharer in any Walpurgis revels 

On midnight mounts with the Devil or devils. 

Not addicted to such diversion ; 

And never, never, on any excursion, — 

Never known to ride on a pig ; — 

Unless it was one that had not grown big : 

For a sweet little pig with a tendril tail, 

Smooth as satin and pinky pale, 

Is a very different thing by far 

From the lumps of iniquity big pigs are ; 



258 PL A Y-JDA Y P OEMS. 

And the queen of the fays herself might ride 

On a plump little pigling, justified. 

So might witchkin, — if she did, 

ISTot by me shall the truth be hid, 

But as for a broomstick, there you can trust her : 

My lady indeed, as it might be presumed, 

Would n't mount upon less than a peacock-plumed, 

Ivory -handled parlor duster ! 



That 's the witch, — and as for the thief, 

His innocence glows in a like relief, 

Though a cleverer larcenist never was known 

From the earliest period down to our own. 

Take the thieves, — and whenever you will, 

Dream is better than constable ; 

Take the thieves, — you have but to dream, 

And they come in a higgledy-piggledy stream, 

Look at them running ! — a multiform, 

Multitudinous, motley swarm. 

All converging with roaring hum ; — 

Slap them down as fast as they come, 

And toss them up in a tumulus, — 

Autolycus; oily Sisyphus; 

The cannibal robber, Polyphemus ; 

Great kine-stealing Hercules ; 

The gods and demigods of Greece ; 

The bloody and hairy bugaboo, 

Cacus, whom Alcides slew ; 

The illustrious Thracian thief, the brander 

Of the glory of Alexander ; 

And the robber beyond description, 

(Apropos, although Egyptian,) 

Ptolemy, who from Greece and us, 

Stole the dramas of iEschylus ; 



TO FANNY. . 259 

Ionians, Dorians, Pelopormesians, 
And in a general way the Grecians ; 
0, the roaring ! 0, the humming ! 
Faster and faster see them coming ! 
The Romans lead like ocean surging, 
Juvenal them like tempest scourging ; 
The Jew floods in behind the Pagan, — 
Barabbas ; Jacob ; Achan ; Fagin ; 
All the money-changers sordid, 
Once that in the temple horded ; 
Titus, Dumachus (ambushed they laid, 
And the Holy Family waylaid) ; 
Demas, G-estas (doomed to languish, 
Sharers they of Cavalry's anguish) ; 
Wretched Judas, sire, of all men, 
To the old-clo'men and three-ball men ; 
Farragut, Charlemagne's Jew physician ; 
(He must have thieved in that position !) 
Shylock ; Rothschild hunkey-dory ; 
Massena ; Moses Montefiore ; 
Abaddon, — the streaming, pouring, 
Bellowing mass ! — and over them roaring, 
Norman Rollo, sea-kings, vi-kings; 
Danes and Swedes of property likings ; 
And all of the Front-de-Bceuf feudality, 
Knights and Barons of high rascality ; 
And Italy's fine romantic fellows, 
Pale Rinaldinis and brown Brunellos, 
Intermixed with the rough banditti, 
The tavern-keepers of every city, 
And cardinals, popes, and men of standing, 
Made sublime by Dante's branding : 
And Avalleneda, who tried to plant his 
Villainous paw on the work of Cervantes, 
Ranked for that with the G-inesillos, 
Gil Bias robbers and Lazarillos, 



260 PLAT-DAT POEMS. 

And long, tumultuous, swarthy train 
Of whiskerandoes belonging to Spain, — 
Chief of them all, as I deplore, 
Jew-plundering Cid Campeador. 
Up they pile on the tumulus growing, 
And after — hark to the cockerel crowing ! 
The thieves of France, a wolfish flock, — 
GTanelon, Villon, Cartouche, Yidocq, 
Lamirande, Thenardier, Lacenaire, 
Louis Napoleon and Robert Macaire ; 
These, and a duodecillion follow, — 
And in with a grunt of thunder wallow, 
The lager-beery, Rhiney-winy, 
Tobaccoey German robbers swiny ; 
Schinderhannes, their captain-boar ; 
Horsed upon him is Charles de Moor ; 
Close behind, as grand and big. 
As though he were anything else but a pig, 
Frederick comes, who stole Silesia, 
Worse than Philip of Macedon G-recia ; 
And up to any mark, much less his mark, 
Schleswig-Holstein-stealing Bismarck, 
Cheek by jowl with red King William, 
Paris who tried to make like Ilium ; 
Up, and let the tumulus swallow 'em ! 
Decenter thieves, thank goodness! follow 'em, 
The Rhoderick Dhus and bold Rob Roys. 
And droves of bare-legged Highland boys ; 
Robin Hood of Sherwood green ; 
The abbots and lords that matched him clean ; 
Friar Tuck, with his oaken maul-staff; 
Pistol, Poins, Prince Hal, and Falstaff; 
William, who raked all England down ; 
Blood, who tried for the English crown ; 
Claude Duval, with light heels dancing; 
Turpin proud, on Black Bess prancing ; 



TO FANNY. 261 

Macheath ; the British in Hindustan ; 
(Thieves and robbers every man !) 
Sheppard ; Barnwell and his charmer; 
Blueskin ; Wild ; the Golden Farmer ; 
The horde of frowsy, greasy, jaily, 
Gallowsy rogues of the grim Old Bailey ; 
The Forty Thieves in a knotted coil, 
Scorched with Morgiana's oil ; 
The Hindu thieves who are oiled to steal, 
And slip your gripe like a conger eel ; 
The Gypsies, swart as their Egypt eldern, 
Stealing horses, stealing children ; 
All the Malays, Greeks, and Cretans, 
Algerines, Arabs, Otaheitans; 
The apple-stealers, Adam and Eve, 
Father and mother of all that thieve ; 
And all the sharpers, cozeners, rooks, 
Footpads, plagiarists of books, 
Gonophs, picaroons, William Walkers, 
Kansas red-legs and jay-hawkers, 
Divers, millers, cheats, freebooters, 
Setters, picklocks, burglars, looters, 
National-bankers, horse-thieves, slavers, 
Ten-per-cent-a-month note-shavers, 
Indian agents, money-is-king men, 
Erie, Wall Street, whisky-ring men, 
Swindle- through-the-lobby oar-men, 
Pacific Railroad men-of-war men, 
Anti-laborer cheap-Chinese men 
(Alias tatter-and-starve-and-freeze men), 
Embezzlers, scampsmen, demi-lunesmen, 
Fakers, prigs, Diana's moonsmen, 
Shirks, pickpockets, stock-inflaters, 
And all the shoals of speculators 
In flour, in coal, in beef, in pork, 



262 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Pile them up and burden them down, 

With the Common Council for a crown, — 

Pile them up in a tumulus tall, 

With Mercury, god of thieves, on all, — 

And over the wriggling mass of depravity, 

Raised by merit and moral gravity, 

Top of the heap entire and clean, 

Will the sweet little minikin thief be seen ! 

He could steal with deft dexterity, 

The honey-bag from the rapiered bee, 

Quicker than you can say to me, 

Honorincabilitudinity ! 

He could steal the lash from the eye of a star, 

Or the sparkle out of the heart of a spar ; 

He could steal the fame from a conqueror's name, 

And shame and blame from a noble aim, 

Next to impossible feats, I claim. 

Naught you might guard with Solomon's seal, 

Or dog or police, but he could steal ; 

Steal as surely as high desire, 

Eagle ambition and hope like fire, 

Beauty and health and the heart for strife. 

And the glory and perfume and grace of life, 

Are stolen, and vainly sought when gone, 

By a Government office in Washington. 



This wondrous thief purveyed you,- 
This lovely bright witch made you,- 
And this is the way it was done. 



Into a grand conservatory, 

Lit by the moon of summer's glory, 

The thief stole deep in the midnight hours, 

And from a mass of camelias there, 



TO FANNY. 263 

Plucked the splendid candid flowers, — 

Never a one did be spare ; 

And lone in her aromatic saloon, — 

Where in the darks and lights of the moon, 

Slept shapes of pari an, buhl, and pearl, 

And rich-hued ottoman and fauteuil; — 

Where wind-moved draperies 1 shadow-play 

Crossed and confused the sumptuous ray, 

And shadowy flames from tripods made 

Delicious shimmerings kin to shade ; — 

A temple of bloom and dusk and gleam, 

An alabaster and velvet dream ; — 

The bright witoh, smiling and debonair, 

Sat, and charmed in the magic night, 

The petals into a lady white, — 

Glowing white and fair. 

Still they bloom, brilliant and fresh, 

In your camelia flesh ; 

They are the splendor and grace 

Of your japonica face ; 

And the glossy camelia leaves are seen 

In the dress you wear of silken green. 

IX. 

And the thief went off where night uncloses 

Her sleeping wild white roses. 

He left them slumbering on the stem, 

But he stole the odor out of them, 

And brought it all to the fay. 

She was singing a melody sweet and gay 

Of tender and dreamful sound ; 

And as she sang there breathed around 

Some rich confusion, dim and strange ; 

And change that was and was not change, 

Perplext the semblance of her hall 

To a doubtful bowery garden tall ; — 



264 PLAT-DAY POEMS. 

The columns and wavering tapestries 

To indeterminate shapes of trees, 

With darkling foliage swaying slow ; 

And checkering shadows strown below 

On the pile enflowered of Persian looms, 

Becoming vague parterres of blooms ; 

And glittering ormolu, green divan, 

Eauteuil, and lounge, and ottoman, 

Half merged, transfiguring yet thereto, 

In forms of bushes gemmed with dew, 

Shrubs blossomy-bright or freaked with gleams, 

Dark banks and hillocks touched with beams ; 

With vase and statue here and there, 

As in some ordered garden rare. 

And what o'er all did stream and flee, 

Lifted and dropt perpetually, — 

Flame-shimmerings and the flooding ray, — 

Half seemed the revel of sun and May. 

A wilder life began to show ; 

A wilder air began to blow ; 

Subtly through all, like a soul, 

The breatn of the wild-rose stole ; 

But suddenly the song did swoon, 

And the place was again a grand saloon, 

With the small witch, smiling and debonair, 

O'er the work she had wrought in secret there. 

What was it ? Where was the odor gone ? — 

arch, gay face I am dreaming on, — 

Sweet face that tenderly shows 

In its delicate paly glows. 

It was moulded from the perfume of the wild white 

rose, — 
He who gazes sees, if he but will, 
The dream of the roses on thee still ! 
The wild-rose fragrance haunts the face so fair, 
And the witch's song is there. 



23 



TO FANNY. 265 



And meanwhile, back and forth, 

East and west and south and north, 

Hither and thither went the thief, 

Bringing morality to grief 

By his manifold picarooning. 

The man in the moon was nigh to swooning 

When he saw him climb, like a sailor, the shrouds, 

Up the moonrays as high as the clouds, 

And steal the amber halo there, — 

Whereof the witch did weave your hair. 

Yea, and he stole the selfsame hour 

A vivid scarlet geranium flower, 

And a pomegranate fed by the Florida sun : 

The first was used for your upper lip, 

And the last for the pouting under one. 

Yea, and he stole ere break of day 

The man in the moon's best ivory ray : 

Laugh at this, that again I may see 

The splendid teeth in the scarlet mouth 

(Flower of the North, fruit of the South), 

Stolen from the moon-man's ivory ! 

Laugh, and turn your eyes this way : 

A piece of the gold-lit dawn, I say, 

Made those eyes of shining gray. 

A famous chief of the Yankton Sioux 

Saw the theft and told the news, 

And out of the prompt, unanimous jaws 

Of the hollopin-gollopin braves and squaws, 

Has since been known as Hole-in-the-Day. 

XL 

girl of the eyes of golden gray, 
This was the way, this was the way ! 

1 tell not all, but how could I tell 
The half of the prodigies that befell ? — 



266 PLAY-DAT POEMS. 

For, 0, as I see you standing there, 
With your soft spring-dawn and flower-like air ; 
Your willowy shape's perfection told 
In the silken cadence of fall and fold ; 
And all you wear and are, into one 
Delicate, elegant harmony run ; 
Your sparkling girdle of filigree 
And the red of your mouth, a euphony : 
The late new fashion and hues of dress, 
As rhyme to your natural loveliness ; — 
With the warm and abundant glow of May 
Lighting your eyes of luminous gray, 
Your tender smiling, your festal mien, 
Your dainty laces, your robe of green, 
Your amber tresses in diadem 
With color and glitter of fillet and gem ; 
And something about your form and face 
That tallies with essence and silk and lace ; 
And something else that as well may suit 
With star and jewel and blossom and fruit ; — 
Seeing you, young Eve-dressed-well ! 
Grace-diabolical ! Peri-belle ! 
A-la-mode-angel ! Siren-child ! 
Dandy-dryad ! — enrapt, beguiled, 
I feel at the time of your origin, 
That the witch and the thief were themselves mixed 
in! 

XII. 

True ? — Indeed it is utterly true : 

Look at the lovers bewitched by you ! 

True ? — Indeed it is truth I say : 

Have n't you stolen their hearts away ? 

So help me Cupid ! I see you stand, 

With the smile on your lip and the fan in your hand, 

And in files on files they round you kneel, 

Like the radiate spokes from the hub of a wheel, 



THE BA CHEL OR'S DREAM. 2 ' 

Each of them under your sorceries' thrall, 

And the hearts gone out of the breasts of all ! 

Ah ! the rosy heaven decrees 

Recompense for deeds like these ! 

This you '11 know when the hour of doom 

Comes in music, balm, and bloom, — 

When, among that love-lorn crew, 

One in turn bewitches you, 

And another heart secures 

By completely stealing yours ! 

William D. O'Connor. 

CJje ISadjelor's Bream. 

My pipe is lit, my grog is mixed, 
My curtains drawn and all is snug ; 
Old Puss is in her elbow-chair, 
And Tray is sitting on the rug. 
Last night I had a curious dream, 
Miss Susan Bates was Mistress Mogg — 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

She looked so fair, she sang so well, 
I could but woo and she was won, 
Myself in blue, the bride in white, 
The ring was placed, the deed was done. 
Away we went in chaise-and-four, 
As fast as grinning boys could flog— 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog? 

What loving tete-d-tetes to come ! 
But tete-d-tetes must still defer ! 
When Susan came to live with me, 
Her mother came to live with her ! 



268 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

With sister Belle she could n't part, 
But all my ties had leave to jog — 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

The mother brought a pretty Poll— 
A monkey too, what work he made ! 
The sister introduced a Beau — 
My Susan brought a favorite maid, 
She had a Tabby of her own, — 
A snappish mongrel christened Gog — 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

The Monkey bit — the Parrot screamed, 
All day the sister strummed and sung ; 
The petted maid was such a scold ! 
My Susan learned to use her tongue : 
Her mother had such wretched health, 
She sat and croaked like auy frog — 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

No longer Deary, Duck, and Love, 
I soon came down to simple " M *' ! 
The very servants crossed my wish, 
My Susan let me down to them. 
The poker hardly seemed my own. 
I might as well have been a log — 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

My clothes they were the queerest shape ! 
Such coats and hats she never met ! 
Mj ways they were the oddest ways ! 
My friends were such a vulgar set ! 



THE BACHELORS DREAM. 269 

Poor Tompkinson was snubbed and huffed, 
She could not bear that Mister Blogg — 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

At times we had a spar, and then 
Mamma must mingle in the song — 
The sister took a sister's part — 
The Maid declared her Master wrong — 
The Parrot learned to call me " Fool " ! 
My life was like a London fog — 
What <T ye think of that, my Cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

My Susan's taste was superfine, 
As proved by bills that had no end— 
/ never had a decent coat — 
/ never had a coin to spend ! 
She forced me to resign my Club, 
Lay down my pipe, retrench my grog— 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

Each Sunday night we gave a rout 
To fops and flirts, a pretty list, 
And when I tried to steal away, 
I found my study full of whist ! 
Then, first to come and last to go, 
There always was a Captain Hogg — 
What d' ye think of that, my Cat ! 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

Now was not that an awful dream 
For one who single is and snug — 
With Pussy in the elbow-chair 
And Tray reposing on the rug ? — 



270 PLA Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

If I must totter down the hill, 
'T is safest done without a clog — 
What <T ye think of that, my Cat ? 
What d' ye think of that, my Dog ? 

Thomas Hood. 

€{K Hag of tfje Hober's dfrienfc- 

I would all womankind were dead, 

Or banished o'er the sea ; 
For they have been a bitter plague 

These last six weeks to me : 
It is not that I 'm touched myself, 

For that I do not fear ; 
No female face hath shown me grace 
For many a bygone year. 

But 't is the most infernal bore, 

Of all the bores I know, 
To have a friend who 's lost his heart 
A short time ago. 

Whene'er we steam it to Blackwall, 

Or down to Greenwich run, 
To quaff the pleasant cider cup, 

And feed on fish and fun ; 
Or climb the slopes of Richmond Hill, 

To catch a breath of air ; 
Then, for my sins, he straight begins 
To rave about his fair. 

Oh, 't is the most tremendous bore, 

Of all the bores I know, 
To have a friend who 's lost his heart 
A short time ago. 

In vain you pour into his ear 
Your own confiding grief ; 



THE LA Y OF THE LO VERS FRIEND. 271 

In vain you claim his sympathy, 

In vain you ask relief; 
In vain you try to rouse him by 

Joke, repartee, or quiz ; 
His sole reply 's a burning sigh, 
And " What a mind it is ! " 

Lord ! it is the greatest bore, 

Of all the bores I know, 
To have a friend who 's lost his heart 
A short time ago. 

I 've heard her thoroughly described 

A hundred times, I 'm sure ; 
And all the while I 've tried to smile, 

And patiently endure ; 
He waxes strong upon his pangs, 

And potters o'er his grog ; 
And still I say, in a playful way— 
" Why you 're a lucky dog! 

But oh ! it is the heaviest bore, 

Of all the bores I know, 
To have a friend who 's lost his heart 
A short time ago. 

I really wish he 'd do like me 

When I was young and strong ; 
I formed a passion every week, 

But never kept it long. 
But he has not the sportive mood 

That always rescued me, 
And so I would all women could 
Be banished o'er the sea. 

For 't is the most egregious bore, 

Of all the bores I know, 
To have a friend who 's lost his heart 
A short time ago. 

William Edmondstoune Aytoun. 



272 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

W$t ^anfjappg Hot cf fflx. 3£nott. 

PART I. 

SHOWING HOW HE BUILT HIS HOUSE AND HIS WIFE 
MOVED INTO IT. 

My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott, 

From business snug withdrawn. 
Was much contented with a lot 
That would contain a Tudor cot 
'Twixt twelve feet square of garden plot, 
And twelve feet more of lawn. 

He had laid business on the shelf 
To give his taste expansion, 

And, since no man, retired with pelf, 
The building mania can shun, 

Knott being middle-aged himself, 

Resolved to build (unhappy elf !) 
A mediaeval mansion. 

He called an architect in council ; 

" I want," said he, " a — you know what, 
(You are a builder, I am Knott,) 
A thing complete from chimney-pot 

Down to the very grounsel ; 

Here 's a half acre of good land ; 

Just have it nicely mapped and planned 

And make your workmen drive on ; 
Meadow there is. and upland too, 
And I should like a water-view, 

D' you think you could contrive one ? 

(Perhaps the pump and trough would do, 

If painted a judicious blue ?) 

The woodland I 've attended to ; 

(He meant three pines stuck up askew, 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 273 

Two dead ones and a live one.) 
" A pocketful of rocks 't would take 
To build a house of freestone, 

But then it is not hard to make 
What nowadays is the stone ; 

The cunning painter in a trice 

Your house's outside petrifies, 

And people think it very gneiss 
Without inquiring deeper ; 

My money never shall be thrown 

Away on such a deal of stone, 
When stone of deal is cheaper." 

And so the greenest of antiques 

Was reared for Knott to dwell in : 
The architect worked hard for weeks 
In venting all his private peaks 
Upon the roof, whose crop of leaks 

Had satisfied Fluellen ; 
Whatever anybody had 
Out of the common, good or bad, 

Knott had it all worked well in, 
A donjon-keep, where clothes might dry, 
A porter's lodge that was a sty, 
A campanile slim and high, 

Too small to hang a bell in ; 
All up and down, and here and there, 
With Lord-knows-whats of round and square 
Stuck on at random everywhere, — 
It was a house to make one stare, 

All corners and all gables ; 
Like dogs let loose upon a bear, 
Ten emulous styles stdboyed with care, 
The whole among them seemed to tear, 
And all the oddities to spare 

Were set upon the stables. 



23* 



274 PL A Y-BAT P OEMS. 

Knott was delighted M'ith a pile 

Approved by fashion's leaders ; 
(Only he made the builder smile, 
By asking every little while, 
Why that was called the Twodoor style, 

Which certainly had three doors ?) 
Yet better for this luckless man 
If he had put a downright ban 

Upon the thing in limine; 
For, though to quit affairs his plan, 
Ere many days, poor Knott began 
Perforce accepting draughts, that ran 

All ways — except up chimney ; 
The house, though painted stone to mock, 
With nice white lines round every block, 

Some trepidation stood in, 
When tempests (with petrific shock, 
So to speak,) made it really rock, 

Though not a whit less wooden ; 
And painted stone, howe'er well done, 
Will not take in the prodigal sun 
Whose beams are never quite at one 

With our terrestrial lumber ; 
So the wood shrank around the knots, 
And gaped in disconcerting spots, 
And there were lots of dots and rots 

And crannies without number, 
Where through, as you may well presume. 
The wind, like water through a flume, 

Came rushing in ecstatic, 
Leaving, in all three floors, no room 

That was not a rheumatic; 
And, what with points, and squares, and round; 

Grown shaky on their poises, 
The house at nights was full of pounds, 



THE UKHAPP Y LOT OF MR. KXO TT. 275 

Thumps, bumps, creaks, scratchings, raps — till — 
"Zounds!" 

Cried Knott, " this all goes beyond bounds; 
I do not deal in tongues and sounds, 
Nor have I let my house and grounds 
To a family of JSToyeses! " 

But, though Knott's house was full of airs, 

He had but one — a daughter ; 
And, as he owned much stocks and shares, 
Many who wished to render theirs 
Such vain, unsatisfying cares, 
And needed wives to sew their tears, 

In matrimony sought her ; 
They vowed her gold they wanted not, 

Their faith would never falter, 
They longed to tie this single Knott 

In the Hyrnenaeal halter ; 
So daily at the door they rang, 

Cards for the belle delivering, 
Or in the choir at her they sang, 
Achieving such a rapturous twang 

As set her nerves a-shivering. 
Now Knott had quite made up his mind 

That Colonel Jones should have her ; 
No beauty he, but oft we find 
Sweet kernels 'neath a roughish rind, 
So hoped his Jenny 'd be resigned 

And make no more palaver; 
Glanced at the fact that love was blind, 
That girls were ratherish inclined 

To pet their little crosses, 
Then nosologically defined 
The rate at which the system pined 
In those unfortunates who diued 
Upon that metaphoric kind 

Of dish — their own proboscis. 



276 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

But she with many tears and moans, 

Besought him not to mock her, 
Said 't was too much for flesh and bones 
To marry mortgages and loans, 
That fathers' hearts were stocks and stones, 
And that she 'd go, when Mrs. Jones, 

To Davy Jones's locker ; 
Then gave her head a little toss 
That said as plain as ever was, 
If men are always at a loss 

Mere womankind to bridle — 
To try the thing on woman cross 

Were fifty times as idle ; 
For she a strict resolve had made 

And registered in private, 
That either she would die a maid, 
Or else be Mrs. Doctor Slade, 

If woman could contrive it ; 
And though the wedding day was set, 

Jenny was more so rather, 
Declaring, in a petty pet, 
That, howsoe'er they spread their net, 
She would out-Jennyral them yet, 

The colonel and her father. 

Just at this time the Public's eyes 

Were keenly on the watch, a stir 
Beginning slowly to arise 
About those questions and replies, 
Those raps that unwrapped mysteries 

So rapidly at Rochester, 
And Knott, already nervous grown 
By lying much awake alone, 
And listening, sometimes to a moan. 

And sometimes to a clatter, 
Whene'er the wind at night would rouse 
The gingerbread-work on his house, 



24 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 277 

Or when some hast} r -tempered mouse, 
Behind the plastering, made a towse 

About a family matter, 
Began to wonder if his wife, 
A paralytic half her life, 

Which made it more surprising, 
Might not to rule him from her urn, 
Have taken a peripatetic turn 

For want of exorcising. 

This thought, once nestled in his head, 

Erelong contagious grew, and spread, 

Infecting all his mind with drettd, 

Until at last he lay in bed 

And heard his wife, with well-known tread, 

Entering the kitchen through the shed, 

(Or was 't his fancy, mocking?) 
Opening the pantry, cutting bread, 
And then (she 'd been some ten years dead) 

Closets and drawers unlocking : 
Or, in his room (his breath grew thick) 
He heard the long-familiar click 
Of slender needles flying quick, 

As if she knit a stocking : 
For whom ? — he prayed that years might flit 

With pains rheumatic shooting, 
Before those ghostly things she knit 
Upon his unfleshed sole might fit ; 
He did not fancy it a bit, 

To stand upon that footing ; 
At other times, his frightened hairs 

Above the bed-clothes trusting, 
He heard her, full of household cares, 
(No dream entrapped in supper's snares, 
The foal of horrible nightmares, 
But broad awake, as he declares,) 



278 PLA YD A Y P OEMS. 

G-o bustling up and down the stairs, 
Or setting back last evening's chairs, 

Or with the poker thrusting 
The raked-up sea-coal's hardened crust — 
And — what ! impossible ! it must ! 
He knew she had returned to dust, 
And yet could scarce his senses trust, 
Hearing her as she poked and fussed 

About the parlor, dusting ! 

Night after night he strove to sleep 

And take his ease in spite of it ; 
But still his flesh would chill and creep, 
And, though two night-lamps he might keep, 

He could not so make light of it. 
At last, quite desperate, he goes 
And tells his neighbors all his woes, 

Which did but their amount enhance ; 
They made such mockery of his fears 
That soon his days were of all jeers, 

His nights of the rueful countenance ; 
"I thought most folks," one neighbor said, 
"Grave up the ghost when they were dead," 
Another gravely shook his head, 

Adding, " from all we hear, it 's 
Quite plain poor Knott is going mad — 
For how can he at once be sad 

And think he 's full of spirits ? " 
A third declared he knew a knife 

"Would cut this Knott much quicker, 
" The surest way to end all strife, 
And lay the spirit of a wife, 

Is just to take and lick her ! " 
A temperance man caught up the word, 
"Ah, yes," he groaned, " I 've always heard 

Our poor friend somewhat slanted 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 279 

Tow'rd taking liquor overmuch ; 
I fear these spirits may be Dutch, 
(A sort of gins, or something such,) 

With which his house is haunted; 
I see the thing as clear as light, — 
If Knott would give up getting tight, 

Naught farther would be wanted " : 
So all his neighbors stood aloof 
And, that the spirits 'neath his roof 
Were not entirely up to proof, 

Unanimously granted. 

Knott knew that cocks and sprites were foes, 
And so bought up, Heaven only knows 
How many, though he wanted crows 
To give ghosts caws, as I suppose, 

To think that day was breaking ; 
Moreover what he called his park, 
He turned into a kind of ark 
For dogs, because a little bark 
Is a good tonic in the dark, 
If one is given to waking ; 
But things went on from bad to worse, 
His curs were nothing but a curse, 

And, what was still more shocking, 
Foul ghosts of living fowl made scoff 
And would not think of going off 

In spite of all his cocking. 
Shanghais, Bucks-counties, Dominiques, 
Maylays (that did n't lay for weeks,) 

Polanders, Bantams, Dorkings, 
(Waiving the cost, no trifling ill, 
Since each brought in his little bill,) 
By day or night were never still, 
But every thought of rest would kill 

With cacklings and with quorkings ; 



280 PLA Y-BAY P OEMS. 

Henry the Eighth of wives got free 

By a way he had of axing ; 
But poor Knott's Tudor hennery 
Was not so fortunate, and he 

Still found his trouble waxing ; 
As for the dogs, the rows they made, 
And how they howled, snarled, barked and bayed 

Beyond all human knowledge is ; 
All night, as wide awake as gnats, 
The terriers rumpused after rats, 
Or, just for practice, taught their brats 
To worry cast-off shoes and hats, 
The bull-dogs settled private spats, 
All chased imaginary cats, 
Or raved behind the fence's slats 
At real ones, or, from their mats, 
With friends, miles off, held pleasant chats, 
Or, like some folks in white cravats, 
Contemptuous of sharps and flats, 

Sat up and sang dogsologies. 
Meanwhile the cats set up a squall, 
And, safe upon the garden- wall, 

All night kept cat-a-walling, 
As if the feline race were all, 
In one wild cataleptic sprawl, 

Into love's tortures falling. 

PART II. 
SHOWING WHAT IS MEANT BY A FLOW OF SPIRITS. 

At first the ghosts were somewhat shy, 
Coming when none but Knott was nigh, 
And people said 't was all their eye, 
(Or rather his) a flam, the sly 
Digestion's machination ; 



THE UNIT AFP Y LOT OF MB. KNO TT 281 

Some recommended a wet sheet, 
Some a nice broth of pounded peat, 
Some a cold flat-iron to the feet, 
Some a decoction of lamb's-bleat, 
Some a southwesterly grain of wheat ; 
Meat was by some pronounced unmeet, 
Others thought fish most indiscreet, 
And that 't was worse than all to eat 
Of vegetables, sour or sweet, 
(Except, perhaps, the skin of beet,) 

In such a concatenation : 
One quack his button gently plucks 
And murmurs " biliary ducks ! " 

Says Knott, " I never ate one " ; 
But all, though brimming full of wrath, 
Homoeo, Alio, B/ydropath, 
Concurred in this — that t' other's path 

To death's door was the straight one. 
Still, spite of medical advice, 
The ghosts came thicker, and a spice 

Of mischief grew apparent ; 
Nor did they only come at night, 
But seemed to fancy broad daylight, 
Tnl Knott, in horror and affright, 

His unoffending hair rent; 
Whene'er with handkerchief on lap, 
He made his elbow-chair a trap, 
To catch an after-dinner nap, 
The spirits, always on the tap, 
Would make a sudden rap, rap, rap, 
The half-spun cord of sleep to snap, 
(And what is life without its nap 
But threadbareness and mere mishap ?) 
As 't were with a percussion cap 

The trouble's climax capping ; 



282 PLA Y-DA T P OEMS. 

It seemed a party dried and grim 
Of mummies had come to visit him, 
Each getting off from every limb 

Its multitudinous "wrapping ; 
Scratchings sometimes the walls ran round, 
The merest penny-weights of sound ; 
Sometimes 't was only by the pound 

They carried on their dealing, 
A thumping 'neath the parlor floor, 
Thump-bump-thump-bumping o'er and o'er, 
As if the vegetables in store 
(Quiet and orderly before) 
Were all together pealing; 

You would have thought the thing was done 
By the spirit of some son of a gun, 

And that a forty-two-pounder, 
Of that the ghost which made such sounds 
Could be none other than John Pounds, 

Of Eagged Schools the founder. 
Through three gradations of affright, 
The awful noises reached their height : 

At first they knocked nocturnally, 
Then for some reason changing quite, 
(As mourners, after six months' flight, 
Turn suddenly from dark to light,) 

Began to knock diurnally. 
And last, combining all their stocks, 

(Scotland was ne'er so full of Knox,) 
Into one Chaos (father of Nox,) 
Node pluit — they showered knocks, 

And knocked, knocked, knocked, eternally : 
Ever upon the go, like buoys, 
(Wooden sea-urchins,) all Knott's joys, 
They turned to troubles and a noise 

That preyed on him internally. 



THE Uh HAPPY LOT OF MB. KNOTT. 283 

Soon they grew wider in their scope ; 
Whenever Knott a door would ope, 
It would ope not, or else elope 
And fly back (curbless as a trope 
Once started down a stanza's slope 
By bard that gave it too much rope — ) 

Like a clap of thunder slamming ; 
And, when kind Jenny brought his hat, 
(She always, when he walked, did that,) 
Just as upon his head it sat, 
Submitting to his settling pat — 
Some unseen hand would jam it flat, 
Or give it such a furious bat 

That eyes and nose went cramming 
Up out of sight, and consequently, 
As when in life it paddled free, 

His beaver caused much damming ; 
If these things seem o'ers trained to be, 
Eead the account of Doctor Dee, 
'T is in our college library ; 
Read Wesley's circumstantial plea, 
And Mrs. Crowe, more like a bee, 
Sucking the nightshade's honeyed fee, 
And Stilling's Pneumatology : 
Consult Scot, G-lanvil, grave Wie- 
Eus, and both Mathers ; further see 
Webster, Casaubon, James's First trea- 
Tise, a right royal Q. E. D. 
Writ with the moon in perigee, 
Bodin de Demonomanie — 
(Accent that last line gingerly) 
All full of learning as the sea 
Of fishes, and all disagree, 
Save in Sathanas apage ! 
Or, what will surely put a flea 



284 PL A Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

In unbelieving ears — with glee, 

Out of a paper (sent to me 

By some friend who forgot to P. . . 

A. . .Y. . . — I use cryptography 

Lest I his vengeful pen should dree— 

His P. . .0. . .S. . .T. . .A. . .a. . .E. . .) 

Things to the same effect I cut, 
About the tantrums of a ghost, 
Not more than three weeks since, at most, 

Near Stratford, in Connecticut. 

Knott's Upas daily spread its roots, 
Sent up on all sides livelier shoots, 
And bore more pestilential fruits ; 
The ghosts behaved like downright brutes, 
They snipped holes in his Sunday suits, 
Practiced all night on octave flutes, 
Put peas (not peace) into his boots, 

Whereof grew corns in season, 
They scotched his sheets, and, what was worse 
Stuck his silk nightcap full of burs, 
Till he, in language plain and terse, 
(But much unlike a Bible verse.) 

Swore he should lose his reason. 

The tables took to spinning, too, 
Perpetual yarns, and arm-chairs grew 

To prophets and apostles ; 
One footstool vowed that only he 
Of law and gospel held the key, 
That teachers of whate'er degree 
To whom opinion bows the knee 
Weren't fit to teach Truth's a. b. c. 
And were (the whole lot) to a T 

Mere fogies all and fossils ; 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MB. KXOTT. 285 

A teapoy, late the property 

Of Knox's Aunt Keziah, 
(Whom Jenny most irreverently 
Had nicknamed her annt-tipathy) 
With tips emphatic claimed to be 

The prophet Jeremiah ; 
The tins upon the kitchen-wall, 
Turned tintinnabulators all, 
And things that used to come at call 

For simple household services 
Began to hop and whirl and prance, 
Fit to put out of countenance 
The Commis and Griseties of France 

Or Turkey's dancing Dervises. 

Of course such doings far and wide, 
With rumors filled the country-side, 
And (as it is our nation's pride 
To think a Truth not verified 
Till with majorities allied) 
Parties sprung up. affirmed, denied, 
And candidates with questions plied, 
Who, like the circus-riders, tried 
At once both hobbies to bestnde, 
And each with his opponent vied 

In being inexplicit. 
Earnest inquiries multiplied ; 
Folks, whose tenth cousins lately died, 
Wrote long letters, and Knott replied ; 
All who could either walk or ride 
Gathered to wonder or deride, 

And paid the house a visit ; 
Horses were at his pine-trees tied, 
Mourners in every corner sighed, 
Widows brought children there that cried, 
Swarms of lean Seekers, eager-eyed, 
24* 



286 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

(People Knott never could abide,) 
Into each hold and cranny pried 
With strings of questions cut and dried 
From the Devout Inquirer's Guide, 
For the wise spirits to decide — 

As, for example, is it 
True that the damned are fried or boiled ? 
Was the Earth's axis greased or oiled ? 
Who cleaned the moon when it was soiled ? 
How baldness might be cured or foiled ? 

How heal diseased potatoes ? 
Did spirits have the sense of smell ? 
Where would departed spinsters dwell ? 
If the late Zenas Smith were well ? 
If Earth were solid or a shell ? 
Were spirits fond of Doctor Fell ? 
Did the bull toll Cock-Robin's knell? 
What remedy would bugs expel ? 
If Paine' s invention were a sell ? 
Did spirits by Webster's system spell? 
Was it a sin to be a belle ? 
Did dancing sentence folks to hell ? 
If so, then where most torture fell — 

On little toes, or great toes ? 
If life's true seat were in the brain ? 
Did Ensign mean to marry Jane ? 
By whom, in fact, was Morgan slain ? 
Could matter ever suffer pain ? 
What would take out a cherry-stain ? 
Who picked the pocket of Seth Crane, 
Of Waldo precinct, State of Maine ? 
Was Sir John Franklin sought in vain? 
Did primitive Christians ever train ? 
What was the family-name of Cain ? 
Them spoons, were they by Betty ta'en ? 
Would earth-worm poultice cure a sprain ? 



TUE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 287 

Was Socrates so dreadful plain ? 

What teamster guided Charles's wain ? 

Was Uncle Ethan mad or sane, 

And could his will in force remain ? 

If not, what counsel to retain ? 

Did Le Sage steal Gil Bias from Spain ? 

Was Junius writ by Thomas Paine ? 

Were ducks discomforted by rain ? 

How did Britannia rule the main ? 

Was Jonas coming back again ? 

Was vital truth upon the wane ? 

Did ghosts, to' scare folks, drag a chain ? 

Who was our Huldah's chosen swain ? 

Did none have teeth pulled without payin', 

Ere ether was invented ? 
Whether mankind would not agree, 
If the universe were tuned in C. ? 
What was it ailed Lucindy's knee ? 
Whether folks eat folks in Feejee ? 
Whether his name would end with T. ? 
If Saturn's rings were two or three, 
And what bump in Phrenology 

They truly represented ? 
These problems dark, wherein they groped, . 
Wherewith man's reason vainly coped, 
Now that the spirit-world was oped, 
In all humility they hoped 

Would be resolved instanter ; 
Each of the miscellaneous rout 
Brought his, or her, own little doubt, 
And wished to pump the spirits out, 
Through his, or her, own private spout, 

Into his or her decanter. 



288 PLA T-DA Y P OEMS. 

PART III. 

WHEREIN IT IS SHOWN THAT THE MOST ARDENT SPIRITS ARE MORE 
ORNAMENTAL THAN USEFUL. 

Many a speculating wight 
Came by express-trains, day and night, 
To see if Knott would " sell his right," 
Meaning to make the ghost a sight — 

What they called a ''meenaygerie " ; 
One threatened, if he would not " trade," 
His run of custom to invade, 
(He could not these sharp folks persuade 
That he was not, in some way, paid,) 

And stamp him as a plagiary, 
By coming down, at one fell swoop, 
With the ORIGINAL knocking troupe, 

Come recently from Hades. 
Who (for a quarter-dollar heard) 
Would ne'er rap out a hasty word 
Whence any blame might be incurred 

From the most fastidious ladies ; 
The late lamented Jesse Soule 
To stir the ghosts up with a pole 
And be director of the whole, 

Who was engaged the rather 
For the rare merits he 'd combine, 
Having been in the spirit line, 
Which trade he only did resign, 
With general applause, to shine, 
Awful in mail of cotton fine, 

As ghost of Hamlet's father ! 
Another a fair plan reveals 
Never yet hit on, which, he feels, 
To Knott's religious sense appeals — 
" We '11 have your house set up on wheels, 

A speculation pious ; 



THE UXIIAF-PT LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 289 

For music, we can shortly find 
A barrel-organ that will grind 
Psalm-tunes, — an instrument designed 
For the New England tour — refined 
From secular drosses, and inclined 
To an unworldly turn, (combined 

With no sectarian bias ;) 
Then, traveling by stages slow, 
Under the style of Knott & Co., 
I would accompany the show 
As moral lecturer, the foe 
Of Rationalism ; you could throw 
The rappings in, and make them go 
Strict Puritan principles, you know, 
(How do you make 'em? with your toe?) 
And the receipts which thence might flow, 

TTe could divide between us; 
Still more attractions to combine, 
Beside these services of mine, 
I will throw in a very fine 
(It would do nieely for a sign) 

Original Titian's Venus." 
Another offered handsome fees 
If Knott would get Demosthenes 
(Nay, his mere knuckles, for more ease) 
To rap a few short sentences ; 
Or if, for want of proper keys, 

His Greek might make confusion, 
Then just to get a rap from Burke, 
To recommend a little work 

On Public Elocution. 
Meanwhile, the spirits made replies 
To all the reverent ivhats and whys, 
Resolving doubts of every size, 
And giving seekers grave and wise, 



25 



200 PL A Y-DA Y P OEMS. 

Who came to know their destinies, 

A rap-turous reception ; 
When unbelievers void of grace 
Came to investigate the place, 
(Creatures of Sadducistic race. 
With groveling intellects and base.) 
They could not find the slightest trace 

To indicate deception ; 
Indeed, it is declared by some 
That spirits (of this sort) are glum, 
Almost, or wholly, deaf and dumb, 
And (out of self -respect) quite mum 
To skeptic natures cold and numb, 
Who of this kind of Kingdom Come 

Have not a just conception ; 
True, there were people who demurred 
That, though the raps no doubt were heard 

Both under them and o'er them, 
Yet, somehow, when a search they made, 
They found Miss Jenny sore afraid, 
Or Jenny's lover, Doctor Slade, 
Equally awe-struck and dismayed, 
Or Deborah, the chamber-maid, 
Whose terrors not to be gainsaid, 
In laughs hysteric were displayed, 

Was always there before them; 
This had its due effect with some 
Who straight departed, muttering, Hum ! 

Transparent hoax ! and Grammon ! 
But these were few : believing souls 
Came, day by day, in larger shoals, 
As the ancients to the windy holes 
'Xeath Delphi's tripod brought their doles, 

Or to the shrine of Ammon. 

The spirits seemed exceeding tame. 
Call whom vou fancied, and he came ; 



TEE Ui\HAPP Y LOT OF MB. KNO TT. 29 

The shades august of eldest fame 

You summoned with an awful ease ; 
As grosser spirits gurgled out 
From chair and table with a spout, 
In Auerbach's cellar once, to flout 
The senses of the rabble rout, 
Where'er the gimlet twirled about 

Of cunning Mephistopheles — 
So did these spirits seem in store, 
Behind the wainscot or the door, 
Ready to thrill the being's core 
Of every enterprising bore 

With their astounding glamor ; 
Whatever ghost one wished to hear, 
By strange coincidence, was near 
To make the past or future clear 

(Sometimes in shocking grammar) 
By raps and taps, now there, now here — ■ 
It seemed as if the spirit queer 
Of some departed auctioneer 
Were doomed to practice by the year 

With the spirit of his hammer ; 
Whate'er you asked was answered, yet 
One could not very deeply get 
Into the obliging spirits' debt, 
Because they used the alphabet 

In all communications, 
And new revealings (though sublime) 
Rapped out, one letter at a time, 

With boggles, hesitations, 
Stoppings, beginnings o'er again, 
And getting matters into train, 
Could hardly overload the brain 

With too excessive rations, 
Since just to ask if two and two 



1 9 2 PLAY-DAY P OEMS. 

Really make four? or How oV ye do? 
And get the fit replies thereto 
In the tramundane rat-tat-too, 
Might ask a whole day's patience. 

'T was strange ('mongst other things) to find 
In what odd sets the ghosts combined, 

Happy forthwith to thump any 
Piece of intelligence inspired, 
The truth whereof had been inquired 

By some one of the company ; 
For instance, Fielding, Mirabeau, 
Orator Henley, Cicero, 
Paley, John Zisca, Marivaux, 
Melanchthon, Robertson, Junot, 
Scaliger, Qhesterfield, Rousseau, 
Hakluyt, Boccacio, South, De Foe, 
Diaz, Josephus, Richard Roe, 
Odin, Arminius, Charles le gros, 
Tiresias, the late James Crow, 
Casabianca, Grose, Prideaux, 
Old Grimes, Young JSTorval, Swift, Brissot, 
Maimonides, the Chevalier D'O, 
Socrates, Fenelon, Job, Stow, 
The inventor of Elixir pro, 
Euripides, Spinoza, Poe, 
Confucius, Hiram Smith, and Fo, 
Came (as it seemed, somewhat de Prop) 
With a disembodied Esquimaux, 
To say that it was so and so, 

With Franklin's expedition ; 
One testified to ice and snow. 
One that the mercury was low, 
One that his progress was quite slow, 



THE UNHAPPY LOT OF MR. KNOTT. 293 

One that the cook had frozen his toe, 
(Dissented from by Dandolo, 
Wordsworth, Cynaegirus, Boileau, 
Lahontan, and Sir Thomas Roe,) 
One saw twelve white bears in a row, 
One saw eleven and a crow, 
With other things we could not know 
(Of great statistic value, though) 
By our mere mortal vision. 

Sometimes the spirits made mistakes, 
And seemed to play at ducks and drakes 
With bold inquiry's heaviest stakes 

In science or in mystery ; 
They knew so little (and that wrong) 
Yet rapped it out so bold and strong, 
One w T ould have said the entire throng 

Had been Professors of History ; 
What made it odder was, that those 
Who, you would naturally suppose, 
Could solve a question, if they chose, 
As easily as count their toes, 

Were just the ones that blundered ? 
One day, Ulysses happening down, 
A reader of Sir Thomas Browne 

And who (with him) had wondered 
What song it was the Sirens sang, 
Asked the shrewd Ithacan — hang I hang ! 
With this response the chamber rang, 
" I guess it was Old Hundred." 
And Franklin, being asked to name 
The reason why the lightning came, 

Replied, " Because it thundered." 

On one sole point the ghosts agreed, 
One fearful point, than which, indeed, 
Nothing; could seem absurder : 



294 FLAT-DAY POEMS. 

Poor Colonel Jones they all abused, 
And finally downright accused 

The poor old man of murder : 
'T was thus : by dreadful raps was shown 
Some spirit's longing to make known 
A bloody fact, which he alone 
Was privy to, (such ghosts more prone 

In earth's affairs to meddle are ;) 
Who are you? with awe-stricken looks, 
All ask : his airy knuckles he crooks 
And raps, " I was Eliab Snooks, 

That used to be a peddler ; 
Some on ye still are on my books ! " 
Whereat, to inconspicuous nooks, 
(More fearing this than common spooks,) 

Shrank each indebted meddler ; 
Further the vengeful ghost declared 
That while his earthly life was spared, 
About the country he had fared, 

A duly licensed follower 
Of that much-wandering trade that wins 
Slow profit from the sale of tins 

And various kinds of hollow-ware ; 
That Colonel Jones enticed him in, 
Pretending that he wanted tin, 
There slew him with a rolling-pin, 
Hid him in a potato-bin, 

And (the same night) him ferried 
Across Great Pond to t' other shore, 
And there, on land of Widow Moore, 
Just where you turn to Larkms store, 

Under a rock him buried ; 
Some friends (who happened to be by) 
He called upon to testify 
That what he said was not a he, 

And that he did not stir this 



THE UNHAPPY LOT W MB. KNOTT. 295 

Foul matter, out of any spite 
But from a simple love of right ; — 

Which statements the nine worthies, 
Rabbi Akiba, Charlemagne, 
Seth, Colley Cibber, General Wayne, 
Cambyses, Tasso, Tubal Cain, 
The owner of a castle in Spain, 
Jehanghire, and the Widow of Nam, 
(The friends aforesaid,) made more plain 

And by loud raps attested ; 
To the same purport testified 
Plato, John Wilkes, and Colonel Pride 
Who knew said Snooks before he died, 

Had in his wares invested, 
Thought him entitled to belief 
And freely could concur, in brief, 

In everything the rest did. 

Eliab this occasion seized, 
(Distinctly here the spirit sneezed,) 
To say that he should ne'er be eased 
Till Jenny married whom she pleased, 

Free from all checks and urgin's, 
(This spirit dropt his final g's) 
And that unless Knott quickly sees 
This done, the spirits to appease, 
They would come back his life to tease, 
As thick as mites in ancient cheese, 
And let his house on an endless lease 
To the ghosts (terrific rappers these 
And veritable Eumenides) 

Of the Eleven Thousand Virgins ! 

Knott was perplexed and shook his head, 
He did not wish his child to wed 
With a suspected murderer, 



2 96 PL A YD A Y P OEMS. 

(For, true or false, the rumor spread,) 
But as for this roiled life he led, 
" It would not answer," so he said, 
" To have it go no furderer." 
At last, scarce knowing what it meant, 
Reluctantly he gave consent 
That Jenny, since 't was evident 
That she would follow her own bent, 

Should make her own election ; 
For that appeared the only way 
These frightful noises to allay 
Winch had already turned him gray p 
And plunged him in dejection. 



Accordingly, this artless maid 

Her father's ordinance obeyed, 

And, all in whitest crape arrayed, 

(Miss Pulsifer the dresses made 

And wishes here the fact displayed 

That she still carries on the trade, 

The third door south from Bagg's Arcade,) 

A very faint "I do " essayed 

And gave her hand to Hiram Slade, 

From which time forth, the ghosts were laid, 

And ne'er gave trouble after; 
But the Selectmen, be it known, 
Dug underneath the aforesaid stone, 
Where the poor peddler's corpse was thrown, 
And found thereunder a jaw-bone, 
Though, when the crowner sat thereon, 
He nothing hatched, except alone 

Successive broods of laughter ; 
It was a frail and dingy thing, 
In which a grinder or two did cling, 

In color like molasses, 



THE UXTIAPPT LOT OF 3fH. KNOTT. 297 

Which surgeons, called from far and wide, 
Upon the horror to decide, 

Having put on their glasses, 
Keported thus — " To judge by looks, 
These bones, by some queer hooks or crooks, 
May have belonged to Mr. Snooks, 
But, as men deepest read in books 

Are perfectly aware, bones, 
If buried fifty years or so, 
Lose their identity and grow 

From human bones to bare bones." 



Still, if to Jaalam you go down, 
You '11 find two parties in the town, 
One headed by Benaiah Brown, 

And one by Perez Tinkham ; 
The first believed the ghosts all through, 
And vow that they shall never rue 
The happy chance by which they knew 
That people in Jupiter are blue, 
And Very fond of Irish stew, 
Two curious facts wdiich Prince Lee Boo 
Rapped clearly to a chosen few — 

Whereas the others think 'em 
A trick got up by Doctor Slacle 
With Deborah the chamber-maid 

And that sly creetur Jinny. 
That all the revelations wise, 
At which the Brownites made big eyes, 
Might have been given by Jarecl Keyes, 

A natural fool and ninny ; 
And, last week, did n't Eliab Snooks 
Come back with never better looks, 
As sharp as new-bought mackerel hooks, 

And bright as a new pin, eh ? 
25* 



298 PLAY-DAY POEMS. 

Good parson Wilbur, too, avers 
(Though to be mixed in parish stirs 
Is worse than handling chestnut-burrs) 
That no case to his mind occurs 
Where spirits ever did converse 
Save in a kind of guttural Erse, 

(So say the best authorities ;) 
And that a charge by raps conveyed, 
Should be most scrupulously weighed 

And searched into, before it is 
Made public, since it may give pain 
That cannot soon be cured again, 
And one word may infix a stain 

Which ten cannot gloss over, 
Though speaking for his private part, 
He is rejoiced with all his heart 

Miss Knott missed not her lover. 

James Russell Lowell. 

Cf)e (Dufrit 

It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept dang ; 
A feckless hairy oubit, and merrily he sang : 
" My Minnie bade me bide at harne until I Avon my wings, 
I shew her soon my soul 's aboon the warks o' creepiug 
things.' 1 

This feckless hairy oubit cam' hirpling by the linn, 
A swirl o' wind cam' doun the glen, and blew that oubit in. 
Oh, when he took the water, the saumon fry they rose, 
And tigg'd him a' to pieces sma', by head and tail and toes. 

Tak' warning then, young poets a', by this poor oubit's 

shame ; 
Though Pegasus may nicher loud, keep Pegasus at hame. 
haud your hands frae inkhorns, though a' the Muses woo ; 
For critics lie, like saumon fry, to mak* their meals o' you. 

Charles Kixgslev. 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



A brace of sinners, for no good 81 

And so our royal relative is dead .... 189 

As rail- tracks shorten in the cold . . . .194 
At a pleasant evening party I had taken down to supper 244 

Babette she was a fisher gal 208 

Balmy Zephyrs, lightly flitting .... 149 
Beautiful ! Sir, you may say so. Thar is n't her match 

in the country 1G7 

Before I sigh my last gasp, let me breathe . . .216 

Be it my most pleasing duty 252 

Ben Battle was a soldier bold 213 

Be seated, pray. A grave appeal .... 185 

Brekekekex ! coax ! coax ! happy, happy frogs . 52 

Come, collar this bad man 180 

Come, fill a fresh bumper, for why should we go .195 
"Come, gentle Spring! ethereal mildness, come! " . 83 

Day hath put on his jacket, and around . . . 198 

Even is come, and from the dark Park hark . . 148 

Fanny, it 's my belief 255 

Good people all, of every sort .... 154 

Good people all, with one accord .... 156 

" Got any boys ?" the Marshal said . . . 119 

Guvener B. is a sensible man 142 



300 IXDEX OF FIRST LINES. 

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay . 100 

How very odd that poets should suppose ... 83 

I don't go much on religion ..... 230 
If only Fate would grant, thus late, the one thing I 

beseech 'er 201 

If the man who turnips cries 217 

I haf von funny leedle poy 17 

I have fancied sometimes the Bethel-bent beam . 51 

I knew a boor — a clownish card .... 94 
I 'm old, my dears, and shriveled, with age, and work, 

and grief ....... 54 

I 'm sitting alone by the fire 250 

In candent ire the solar splendor flames . . 192 

In January, when down the dairy .... 41 

In moss-prankt dells which the sunbeams flatter . 152 

In the gap of Dunlo 207 

I reside at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful 

James 158 

I saw her last night at a party 99 

It don't seem hardly right, John . . . . 26 

I thank you, Mr. President, you 've kindly broke the ice 47 

It is a lordly Sophomore 44 

It once might have been, once only . . . 242 

It was a millinger most gay 132 

It was an Amateur Dram. Ass. . . . . 115 

It was an hairy oubit, sae proud he crept alang . . 298 

It was a night in harvest-time .... 231 

It was six men of Indostan 160 

It was the stage-driver's story, as he stood with his 

back to the wheelers . . . . . 161 

I was in Margate last July, I walked upon the pier . 22 

I would all womankind were dead . . . 270 

I wrote some lines once on a time .... 3 

John Gilpin was a citizen 106 

Last week I went to Barnegat ..... 144 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 301 

Like a blotch upon a beauty ..... 02 

Little I ask ; my wants are few .... 122 

Maiden with the raven locks 20-4 

Many a long, long year ago 88 

Men dying make their wills ; but wives . . . 188 

My curse upon thy venom'd stang . . . 17G 

My dear } T oung friend, whose shining wit ... 1 

My pipe is lit, my grog is mixed .... 267 
My worthy friend, A. Gordon Knott . . . .272 

Needy knife-grinder, whither are you going? . 141 

Xone are so wise as they who make pretense . . 89 

for a lodge in a garden of cucumbers! . . 193 

lad} T , wake ! the azure moon ..... 204 

Old Peter led a wretched life . . . . 164 

Molly, thy capacious mug 203 

Once git a smell 'o musk into a draw ... 85 

One day, as I was going by ..... 19 
One night came on a hurricane, the sea was moan tains 

rolling. 180 

On the eighth day of March it was, some people say . 121 

O the quietest home on earth had I . . . 16 

Owd Pinder were a rackless foo .... 187 

O what harper could worthily harp it . . . 199 

O what is that comes gliding in 119 



O whither goest thou, pale student . . . 172 

O will ye choose to hear the news .... 70 
O Woman of Three Cows, agragh ! don't let your 

tongue thus rattle 91 

Sally Salter she was a young teacher who taught . 205 

She is talking aesthetics, the dear clever creature . 96 

She laid it where the sunbeams fall . . . .14 

Since spelling-matches everywhere . . . 239 

Singing through the forests 138 

Sir Poet, ere you crossed the lawn ... 4 
26 



302 



INDEX OF FIRST LINES. 



That nightee teem, he come chop chop . 

The auld wife sat at her ivied door 

The darkest, strangest mystery 

The days were at their longest . 

The Emperor Nap, he would set off 

The glow and the glory are plighted . 

The history of human kind to trace 

The laird o' Cockpen he 's proud and he 's great 

There 's some is born with their straight legs by 

There was a lady lived at Leith . 

There was a young man in Boston town 

There were three sailors of Bristol City 

The stars are rolling in the sky 

To Lake Aghmoogenegamook 

'T was on the shores that round our coast 

'T was twelve o'clock by Chelsea chimes . 

Twelve years ago I made a mock . 



We love thee, Ann Maria Smith 
Werther had a love for Charlotte . 
What poor short-sighted worms we be 

What, what, what 

When chapman billies leave the street 
Whene'er with haggard eyes I view 
When moonlike ore the hazure seas . 
Whereas, on certain boughs and sprays . 
Which I wish to remark 
Widow Machree, it 's no wonder you frown 
With ganial foire 



natur 



Years, years ago, ere yet my dreams 
Young Ben, he was a nice young man 
Young Rory O'More courted Kathleen Bawn 
You see this pebble-stone ? It 's a thing I bought 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

ADAMS, CHARLES FOLLEN (Boston, living). Leedh 
Yaivcob Strauss, 17. His Poems were published in 
Boston in 1878. 

ARNOLD, GEORGE (New Jersey, 1834-65). The Cruise 
of the Flora, 144. A complete edition of his Poems was 
published in Boston in 18G7. 

AYTOUN, WILLIAM EDMONDSTOUNE (Scotland, 
1813-65). The Lay of the Lover's Friend, 270. There 
is a New York edition of his Bon Gaultier Ballads, and 
other poems. 

BARHAM, RICHARD HARRIS (England, 1788-1845). 
Misadventures at Margate, 22. A complete edition of his 
Ingoldsby Legends was published in 1847. There is a 
New York edition, in two volumes. 

BEERS, HENRY A. (New Haven, Conn., living). A 
Merry Ballad of Three Sophomores and a Toll- Woman, 
44. — Ye Lay of ye Woodpeckore, 172. His Poems were 
published in Boston in 1878. 

BLACKIE, JOHN STUART (Scotland, living). The 
Musical Frogs, 52. The refrain of this poem is borrowed 
from Aristophanes. Prof. Blackie has published two 
volumes of Poems — the last, Edinburgh and New York, 
1876. 

BROWNJELL, H. P. H. (America, ). Invocation to 

Spring, 197. I can learn nothing of the author of this 

303 



B04 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

poem. He seems not to be identical with Henry Howard 
Brownell. 

BROWNING, ROBERT (England, living). Youth and 
Art, 242. His successive volumes of Poems are regularly 
republished in Boston. 

BULWER LYTTON, ROBERT (England, living. Viceroy 
of India.) Midges, 96. The best complete edition of his 
Poems was published in Boston in 1877. 

BURNS, ROBERT (Scotland, 1759-96). Tarn OShanter, 
8. — To the Toothache, 176. The first complete edition of 
his Poems was published in 1834. 

BUTLER, WILLIAM ALLEN (New York, living). Dobbs 
his Ferry, 218. A complete edition of his Poems was 
published in Boston in 1871. 

CALVERLEY, CHARLES S. (England, living). BaMad, 
157. — The Cock and the Bull, 66. — Lovers, and a Reflec- 
tion, 152. — Motherhood, 14. — The Schoolmaster Abroad, 
199. His Poems are republished in New York. 

CANNING, GEORGE (England, 1770-1827). The Needy 
Knife- Grinder, 141. — The University of Gottingen, 43. 
The former was written to ridicule the early poetry of 
Southey ; the latter appeared as a song in Canning's play 
of The Rovers. His Poems are included in Poetry of the 
Anti-Jacobin, London, 1858. 

COOK, MARC E. (Utica, N. Y., living). To a Pretty 
School- Ma 1 am, 201. This poem appeared originally in the 
New York Graphic. 

COWPER, WILLIAM (England, 1731-1800). The History 
of John Gilpin, 106. This ballad was published in 1783, 
but it took the British public three years to find out that 
it was funny. 

CRANCH, CHRISTOPHER PEARSE (Cambridge, Mass.. 
living). A Chinese Story, 89. He has published two 
volumes of Poems — the last in Boston in 1875. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 305 

CROFFUT, WILLIAM A. (New York, living). A Dirge, 
189. His later writings have appeared in the New York 
Graphic, of which he is one of the editors. 

DOBSON, AUSTIN (England, living). A Garden Idyl, 4. 
— A Virtuoso, 185. His Poems were published in London 
in 1873. 

DONNE, JOHN (England, 1573-1631). The Will, 216. 
There is a Boston edition of his Poems. 

FIELDS, JAMES T. (Boston, living). The Nantucket Skip- 
per, 88. He is the author of three small volumes of 
Poems. 

GILBERT, WILLIAM S. (England, living). Babette's 
Love, 208. — The Bumboat Woman's Story, 54. — The Folly 
of Brown, 94. — The Gentle Pieman, 244. — The Perils of 
Invisibility, 164. — Phrenology, 180. — The Yarn of the 
Nancy Bell, 135. One of his two volumes of Bab Ballads, 
with illustrations, has been republished in Philadelphia. 

GOLDSMITH, OLIVER (Ireland, 1728-74). Elegy on a 
Mad Dog, 154. — Elegy on Mrs. Blaize, 156. 

HARTE, BRET (New York, living). Chiquita, 167.— Her 
Letter, 250. — Plain Language from Truthful James, popu- 
larly known as The Heathen Chinee, 104. — The Society 
upon the Staislow, 158. — The Stage- Driver's Story, 161. 
— A complete edition of his Poems is published in Boston. 

HAY, JOHN (Cleveland, O., living). Little Breeches, 230. 
— The Mystery of Gilgal, 79. His Poems were published 
in Boston in 1871. 

HOLMES, OLIVER WENDELL (Boston, living). ^Estiva- 
tion, 192. — Contentment, 122. — Evening, 198. — The Height 
of the Ridiculous, 3. — Meeting of the Harvard Alumni, 47. 
— Ode for a Social Meeting, 195. — The One-Hoss Shay, 
100. — The Stethoscope Song, 169.: — The Treadmill Song, 
183. The best complete edition of his Poems was pub- 
lished in Boston in 1878. 



306 INDEX Um ^uTHORS. 

HOOD, THOMAS (England, 1798-1845). The Bachelor's 
Bream, 267. — A Black Job, 72. — Faithless Nelly Gray, 213. 
— Faithless Sally Brown, 211. — The Lost Heir, 19. — A Noc- 
turnal Sketch, 148. — A Sailor's Apology for Bow Legs, 177. 
— Sully Simpkins's Lament, 119. — Spring, 83. — The Sup- 
per Superstition, 129. The fullest collections of his Poems 
are two editions published in Boston, 1856 and 1857. 

JOHNSON, ROSSITER (New York, living). Ninety-Nine 
in the Shade, 193. — Zero in the Sun, 194. — A Rhyme of 
the Rain, 62. The first of these was published originally 
in Punchinello in the summer of 1870 ; the other two in 
Appletons' Journal. 

KINGSLEY, CHARLES (England, 1819-75). The Oubit, 
298. A complete edition of his Poems was published in 
London in 1872. 

LANIGAN, GEORGE T. (New York, living.) The Ama- 
teur Orlando, 115. — A Threnody, 191. He is the writer 
of the Fables and of numerous ballads in the New York 
World. A collection of the former, with illustrations, 
was published in New York in 1878. 

LOCKER, FREDERICK (England, living). A Nice Corre- 
spondent, 248. His Poems were published in London in 
1857; Boston, 1870. 

LONGFELLOW, HENRY WADSWORTH (Cambridge, 
Mass., living). Topside Oalah! 147. In the original 
this poem bears the title of Excelsior. 

LORING, FRED. W. (Boston, 1849-71). The Fair Mil- 
linger, 132. His Poems, which originally appeared in the 
Harvard Advocate, are published in Boston. 

LOVER, SAMUEL (Ireland, 1797-1868). The Birth of 
Saint Patrick, 121.— Paddy Blake's Echo, 207.— Rory 
0' More, 241. — Widow Machree, 237. A complete edition 
of his Poems is published in London and New York. 

LOWELL, JAMES RUSSELL (Cambridge, Mass., living. 



INDEX OF AUTHORS. 307 

U. S. Minister to Spain). Jonathan to John, 26. — Spring, 
85.— The 'Unhappy Lot of Mr. Knott, 272.— What Mr. 
Robinson Thinks, 142. The best complete edition of his 
Poems was published in Boston in 1877. 

MAGINN, WILLIAM (Ireland, 1793-1812). The Irish- 
man, 58. A collection of his miscellaneous works was 
published in New York in 1855-7. 

MANGAN, JAMES CLARENCE (Ireland, 1803-49). The 
Woman of Three Cows, 91. His Poems were published 
in New York in 1859. 

MARBLE, EARL (Boston, living). The Amateur Spelling- 
Match, 239. This poem appeared originally in Appletons' 
Journal. 

NAIRNE, BARONESS (Scotland, 1766-1845). The Laird 
6 1 Cockpen, 60. A complete edition of her Poems was 
published in Edinburgh in 1869. 

NEWELL, ROBERT H. (New York, living). The Amer- 
ican Traveler 226.— The Editor's Wooing, 196. He is bet- 
ter known by his pseudonym of Orpheus C. Kerr. His 
Poems were published in Boston in 1871. 

O'CONNOR, FRANCIS (Rochester, N. Y., living). A 
Country Courtship, 231. This poem appeared originally 
in Appletons' Journal. 

O'CONNOR, MICHAEL (Rochester, N. Y., 1837-62— 
brother of Francis). The Beauty, 252. — To a Rich Young 
Lady, 204. His Poems were printed privately in 1872. 

O'CONNOR, WILLIAM DOUGLAS (Washington, D. O, 
living). To Fanny, 255. This poem appeared originally 
in the Atlantic Monthly. 

PITT, WILLIAM (England, died in 1840). Barney Bunt- 
line, 180. Mr. Pitt was an officer in the British navy. 

PRAED, WINTHROP MACKWORTH (England, 1802- 
39). The Belle of' the Ball, 37. — School and Schoolfellows, 



308 INDEX OF AUTHORS. 

35. The complete edition of his Poems, 1864, is repub- 
lished in New York. 

SAXE, JOHN GODFREY (Brooklyn, N. Y., living). The 
Blind Men and the Elephant, 160. — Comic Miseries, 1. — 
Epigram, 188. — The Mourner a la Mode, 99. — The Puzzled 
Census- Taker, 119. — Rhyme of the Rail, 138. A complete 
edition of his Poems is published in Boston. 

SMITH, HORACE (England 1779-1849). Drurifs Dirge, 
149. This is one of the Rejected Addresses written by- 
James and Horace Smith when a prize was offered, in 
1812, for an ode to be read at the opening of the new 
Drury Lane Theatre. The old one was destroyed by fire. 
The Rejected Addresses are published in Xew York. 

SOTTTHEY, ROBERT (England, 1774-1843). The March 
to Moscow, 30. He published a complete edition of his 
Poems in 1837-8. 

STEDMAN, EDMUXD CLAEENCE (Xew York, living). 
Country Sleighing, 41. A complete edition of his Poems 
was published in Boston in 1873. 

TAYLOR, BEX-JAMIX F. (Chicago, living). The Old Vil- 
lage Choir, 51. He has published two volumes of Poems 
in Chicago, 1873-5. 

THACKERAY, WILLIAM MAKEPEACE (England, 1811 
-63). The Crystal Palace, 124.— Little BUM 133.— Mr. 
Molony's Account of the Ball, 70. — Sorrows of Werther, 60. 
— When Moonlike ore the Hazure Seas, 229. The Amer- 
ican edition of his Ballads was published in Boston in 
1855, and is soon to be re-issued in Xew York. 

YAXDYXE. MARY E. (Xew York, living). The Bald- 
Headed Tyrant, 16. This poem appeared originally in 
Harper's Magazine. 

YVAUGH, EDTTIX (England, living). Owd Pinder, 187. 
He has published several small volumes of Poems in the 
Lancashire dialect. 



INDEX OF A UTI10RS. 309 

WHITCHER, MRS. FRANCES MIRIAM (Whitesboro, 
N. Y., 1812-52). K. K—Ccm't Calculate, 151. This 
poem is from the Bedott Papers, published in New York 
in 1855. 

WOLCOT, JOHN (England, 1738-1819). The Pilgrims 
and the Peas, 81. He is better known by his pseudonym 
of Peter Pindar. He published several volumes of satir- 
ical verse. 



ANONYMOUS. A Ballad of Bedlam, 204.— Love's Moods 
205.— The Nose, 83.— The Pugilist to his 



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Afar in the Desert— The Angler's Wish— The Annuity (humorous)— Antony and 
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Bonny— We'll go to Sea no More— What Constitutes a State ?— What is Time y— What 
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thus Longing '/—Widow Malone (humorous) -Willie Winkie— Willie Drowned in 
Yarrow — Ye Gentlemen of England. 

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